Autonomous Tracking System of a Moving Target for Underwater Operations of Work-class ROVs

This paper presents an autonomous tracking system of a moving target Underwater Operations of Work-class ROVs using a single camera. A computer vision system is developed to detect fiducial markers attached to the target and estimate its position in the global frame, representing it in the latitude and longitude coordinates for the global positioning controller of the ROV. Real-world environmental tests consisting of using a workclass ROV to autonomously tracking a smaller ROV is presented and results demonstrate the feasibility of the developed system.