Maritime intent estimation and the detection of unknown obstacles

The benefits of using Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) in maritime operations are numerous. However, before these benefits can be realized, UUV capabilities must be expanded. This thesis focuses on improving certain aspects of the Maritime Reconnaissance and Undersea Search and Survey capabilities of a UUV. An algorithm is first presented which provides the UUV with the ability to estimate the intent of the contacts it is observing (intent estimation). This was accomplished by developing a probabilistic model of the contact's possible intents and then using those models to estimate the contact's actual intent. The results from that algorithm are used to analyze the contact's observed path to determine a probabilistic belief of the potential location of obstacles in the environment (obstacle detection) that the contact is avoiding. These values are recorded in an obstacle inference map, which is capable of incorporating the results from the analysis of any number of observed paths from multiple contacts. The laws of probability were used to develop the algorithms in this thesis-with an emphasis on Bayes' rule. Various scenarios are presented to demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of the intent estimation and obstacle detection algorithms.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Fong, Edward H. L. (Edward Hsiang Lung), 1980-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael E. Cleary.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/30279

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/30279