Der schwarmfähige Unterwasserroboter Monsun

Benjamin Meyer

Abstract

Albert Einstein said long time ago, imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. Thus, this imagination made the development of the Monsun AUV possible, which is the robot dedicated to in this work. Our age is characterised by the change of our surrounding environment and caused natural phenomena. The aim is to find explanations and reasons for these effects. The research field of Environmental Monitoring deals with the survey of the world and especially monitoring of water bodies requires tremendous effort in data collection and measurements, because of two thirds of earth’s surface is covered with water. To be able to identify changes in different habitats, a periodical and extensive monitoring is needed, which is difficult to achieve with conventional methods. Whenever the resulting task is too complex for solving with nowadays resources, it is in the human nature to search for a tool for relief. Therefore, it is not surprising, that autonomous underwater vehicles arouse interest to help with the monitoring. However, the existing systems were primary designed to drive in open waters, expensive and not easily adaptable to needed missions. Therefore, this work describes the design of the swarm-capable underwater robot Monsun, flexibly developed towards the goal to be applicable for a large number of missions and to be used in areas not suitable for larger AUVs. One by one all components of the robot are described to be finally assembled to a comparable small underwater robot. Besides large modularity in design, the robot is characterized by its capability to drive in a swarm. It is possible to move in a team of robots to fulfil the missions. Thus, a wider range of possibilities is given due to the simultaneous use, for instance underwater localisation with the help of distance measurements instead of expensive sensors. Besides various experiments and trials to present general functioning of the robot, the Expedition Clockwork Ocean will be presented as central evaluation point and gathered data is processed. The flexible Monsun AUV is the result of the work, which acts as a starting point for new ideas and possible applications in the imagination of the viewer.
Original languageGerman
QualificationDoctorate / Phd
Awarding Institution
  • Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Maehle, Erik, Supervisor
  • Hellbrück, Horst, Supervisor
Award date24.09.2019
Publication statusPublished - 09.10.2019

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