DIIUS - Distributed Perception for Inspection of Aquatic Structures

The worldwide context has fostered the innovation geared to the blue growth. However, the aquatic environment imposes many restrictions to mobile robots, as their perceptual capacity becomes severely limited. DIIUS aims to strengthen the perception of distributed robotic systems to improve the current procedures for inspection of aquatic structures (constructions and/or vessels).The perception of large working areas from multiples robots raises a number of unresolved inference problems and calls for new interaction patterns between multiple disciplines, both at the conceptual and technical level. To address this important challenge, the DIIUS project seeks to reinforce the current state-of-art in several scientific domains that fit into artificial intelligence, computer vision, and robotics. Through case studies focused on 3D mapping of aquatic structures (ex., maritime constructions and adduction tunnels), the project investigates new spatio-temporal data association techniques, including the correlation of sensors from heterogeneous robot formations operating in environments with communications constraints.