Navigation and guidance of an autonomous surface vehicle.

摘要

This thesis describes the work done in transforming a small boat with two aft thrusters and a single rudder into an Autonomous Surface Vehicle which is capable of operation in diverse marine environments such as lakes, rivers, marinas and harbors. The sensors utilized are a Global Positioning System, a 3 degree of freedom Inertial Measurement Unit consisting of gyroscopes, accelerometers and an integrated magnetometer compass. The guidance system is aided by a stereo vision system that uses stereo disparities to make inferences about obstacles. The boat is currently being used to collect data used by a team of researchers, to study the effect of harmful algal blooms. After a brief description of the system design, we discuss the design and implementation of the heading autopilot, line of sight guidance system and the stereo vision-based obstacle avoidance system.