Stochastic Motion Planning for Applications in Subsea Survey and Area Protection

This dissertation addresses high-level path planning and cooperative control for autonomous vehicles. The objective of our work is to closely and rigorously incorporate classication and detection performance into path planning algorithms, which is not addressed with typical approaches found in literature. We present novel path planning algorithms for two different applications in which autonomous vehicles are tasked with engaging targets within a stochastic environment. In the first application an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) must reacquire and identify clusters of discrete underwater objects. Our planning algorithm ensures that mission objectives are met with a desired probability of success. The utility of our approach is verified through field trials. In the second application, a team of vehicles must intercept mobile targets before the targets enter a specified area. We provide a formal framework for solving the second problem by jointly minimizing a cost function utilizing Bayes risk.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Bays, Matthew Jason

Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair

• Kochersberger, Kevin B.
• Stilwell, Daniel J.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Furukawa, Tomonari
• Leonessa, Alexander
• Woolsey, Craig A.

• Classification
• Bayes Risk
• Detection
• Robotics
• Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
• Decision Theory
• Path Planning

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-04102012-134338

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/26763