AUVAC

Automated Fault Diagnosis for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

April 30, 2013
Deardon R, Ernits J, Automated Fault Diagnosis for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, April 2013

Abstract

This paper reports our results in using a discrete fault diagnosis system, Livingstone 2 (L2), on-board an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), Autosub 6000. Due to the difficulty of communicating between an AUV and its operators, AUVs can benefit particularly from increased autonomy, of which fault diagnosis is a part. However, they are also restricted in their power consumption. We show that a discrete diagnosis system can detect and identify a number of faults that would threaten the health of an AUV, while also being sufficiently lightweight computationally to be deployed on-board the vehicle. Since AUVs also often have their missions designed just before deployment in response to data from previous missions, a diagnosis system that monitors the software as well as the hardware of the system is also very useful. We show how a software diagnosis model can be built automatically that can be integrated with the hardware model to diagnose the complete system. We show empirically that on Autosub 6000 this allows us to diagnose real vehicle faults that could potentially lead to the loss of the vehicle.

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Experirences on actuator fault detection, Diagnosis and Accomodation for ROV’s,

August 27, 2001
Caccia M, Bono R, Bruzzone Ga, Bruzzone Gi, Spirandelli E, Veruggio G, Experirences on actuator fault detection, Diagnosis and Accomodation for ROV’s, UUST-12, Aug 27 2001

Abstract
This paper addresses the problem of low cost actuator fault detection, diagnosis and accommodation for Remotely Operated Vehicles. The research is based on the analysis of the telemetry of Romeo, the overactuated ROV developed by C.N.R.-I.A.N., operating both in nominal and different failure conditions. Results demonstrate how the monitoring of the servoamplifiers’ I/O variables enables the detection and diagnosis of actuator faults for operating ROVs, supporting the pilot in making decisions on the realtime reconfiguration of the propulsion system. The integration of the servo-level FDDA module with a conventional navigation, guidance and control system is discussed. On the basis of experienced time-varying effects of operating failures, suitable models of the damaged actuators and algorithms for the generation of fault symptoms and alarms have been designed, implemented and satisfactorily tested on a large
amount of recorded ROV data. The conventional fault accommodation procedure based on the reconfiguration
of the vehicle’s thrust control matrix has been applied. The capability of Romeo of working in a reduced actuation configuration has been operationally demonstrated executing shallow water benthic missions for scientific users.

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