Developing an Autonomous Surface Ship for Sea Demining: First Steps

The paper describes the first steps of the development of an autonomous surface ship for sea demining. The objective is to substitute humans in a dangerous humanitarian task. The research has three main phases. The first one is to develop at laboratory scale the infrastructure for the final system. The second is devoted to medium scale tests in open air scenarios. The third phase is real scale operation. This paper refers to the first phase, in which a ‘universal control unit’ is being developed for autonomous navigation control. Software modules are also under development for on-board control with self-localization, and for area scanning trajectory generation and then tracking. The vehicle uses a towed fish. Both the towing cable and the fish generate electric and magnetic fields, to cause mine detonation by field influence. This study is made both with simulations and with scale experiments.