Sailing Control of a Moored USV without Thruster in Running Water

As part of the NEDO robot project, we are engaged in developing a surface/underwater robot system which investigates underwater infrastructure such as dams and river facilities. In this paper, we propose a sailing control method based on "extended kite flying principle" for a moored unmanned surface vehicle (USV) system in running water. We also develop the mooring system and the miniaturized USV with a mooring arm that can change the position of a coupling point with mooring wire. The effect of the arm and twin rudders control on position and posture of the USV sailing is analyzed. We conduct sailing experiments in an indoor pool with visual tracking system and wireless communication device. The sailing of the USV to the desired goal is realized in running water. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.