Image-based visual servoing for docking of an autonomous underwater vehicle

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) depends on the embedded battery inside its system as a sole source of energy. It cannot prolong its operation due to the limited capacity of the battery. To overcome this limitation, a docking station may be utilized so that the AUV can dock inside the station and recharges its battery. There are few researches conducted on the docking of AUV using vision. Research which relies on the pose of the docking station to guide the AUV during docking operation may experience difficulties if the target is lost from the camera view. The AUV cannot determine the docking station pose if there are missing features. In this paper, an image based visual servoing method is proposed for the AUV to dock inside a docking station by relying on 5 target features. Simulation result shows that the AUV is capable to dock successfully inside the station by employing the proposed method.