Alpha Science AUV

This repository contains source codes for ALPHA Science AUV.

Directory Structure

alpha_sci_auv Meta Package for ALPHA AUV.

alpha_sci_bringup Launch files for firing up the vehicle and simulator.

alpha_sci_config Configuration files for devices, vehicle controller, mission controller, and etc.

alpha_sci_description URDF descriptions, 3D Mesh, and launch files for the ALPHA AUV.

alpha_sci_stonefish Stonefish descriptions for ALPHA AUV.

alpha_sci_viz Contains configuration for RViZ.

Installation

MVP Installation

Currently MVP packages should be build from the source. Target platform must be Ubuntu 20.04 because of the dependencies.

Pull repository and other dependencies

git clone --single-branch --branch noetic-devel https://github.com/uri-ocean-robotics/mvp_msgs
git clone --single-branch --branch noetic-devel https://github.com/uri-ocean-robotics/mvp_control
git clone --single-branch --branch noetic-devel https://github.com/uri-ocean-robotics/mvp_mission
git clone --single-branch --branch noetic-devel https://github.com/uri-ocean-robotics/stonefish_mvp

ALPHA AUV Simulation and Hardware Installation

Pull repository and other dependencies

git clone https://github.com/uri-ocean-robotics/alpha_auv
cd alpha_auv
git submodule update --init --recursive

Install pip and setup python3 as default

sudo apt install python3-pip

Install Stonefish Simulator

Pull the stonefish simulator library repository in somewhere other than ROS workspace. Follow the installation instuctions at the Stonefish Readme.

git clone https://github.com/uri-ocean-robotics/stonefish

Install the dependencies

sudo apt install libglm-dev libsdl2-dev

Build the stonefish library and install it.

cd stonefish
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Install Dependencies

Install dependencies

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro ${ROS_DISTRO} -y

Test the installation

To run the simulation

roslaunch alpha_sci_bringup bringup_simulation.launch

Quick Start

Run the simulation and MVP Helm

roslaunch alpha_sci_bringup bringup_simulation.launch

Enable the controller

rosservice call /alpha/controller/enable

Start the local path tracking mission

rosservice call /alpha/helm/change_state "state: 'survey_local'"

Citation

If you find this software useful in your research, please cite:

Note, this work is published in OCEANS 2022 conference. Once the paper is publicly available, bibtex entry will be updated with the one from IEEExplore.

@inproceedings{
    ALPHA_PAPER,
    title = {Acrobatic Low-cost Portable Hybrid AUV (ALPHA): System Design and Preliminary Results},
    author={Zhou, Mingxi and Gezer, Emir Cem and McConnell, William and Yuan, Chengzhi},
    booktitle={OCEANS 2022: Hampton Roads},
    year={2022},
    organization={IEEE}
}

Funding

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation award #2154901