This Article Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Fairfield, N. Articles by Wettergreen, D. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Autonomous Exploration and Mapping of Flooded Sinkholes

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: than{at}timbrel.org.

	Abstract

In this paper, we describe the control, navigation, and mapping methods that were developed for a hovering autonomous underwater vehicle that explored flooded cenotes in Mexico. The cenotes of Sistema Zacatón in Tamaulipas, Mexico are flooded sinkholes, exotic geological formations with unique water chemistry. The largest, Zacatón, is over 300-m deep. None of the cenotes were mapped before the present DEPTHX project. The goals of the DEPTHX project were to construct metrically accurate three-dimensional maps of the cenotes, and to collect environmental data, imagery, water samples, and core samples. The unknown extent of the cenotes, together with the challenging scientific mission, spurred the development of a robotic vehicle that autonomously, with no communications to the surface, built accurate three-dimensional maps using sonar and collected a variety of scientific data, including core samples from the cenote walls. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation, and testing of the robot software, as well as the results from mapping four cenotes of Sistema Zacatón.

First published on September 28, 2009
The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009, doi:10.1177/0278364909344779


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?