Contacts: Giuseppe Casalino
Professor of Automatic Control and Industrial Robotics
Department of Communication, Computer and System Science (DIST) of the University of Genova
pino@dist.unige.it

Biography: Prof. Giuseppe Casalino received the five-years degree “Laurea” in Electronic Engineering from the University of Genova in 1975. Currently he is full professor at the Department of Communication, Computer and System Science (DIST) of the University of Genova, holding the chair "Industrial Robotics" and also teaching the course of "Automatic Control"; other than being the deputy director of the local Laboratory of Robotics and Automation. Currently he is also the Director of the Inter-university Center for Marine Environment (ISME), with legal entity at University of Genova, of which DIST is one of its members and a specific operation unit. Previous positions covered by Prof Casalino were at University of Pisa (full. Prof., chair of "Industrial Robotics"), University of Calabria (full. Prof., chair of "Automatic Control") and originally at University of Genova (associate Prof. on "Multivariable Control Theory" and "Industrial Robotics"). In the past recent years he has also been the director of DIST and the deputy director at the University of Genova for all the technology transfer activities. Moreover in the past he also served, at Italian national level, as President of the Italian Academic Association of Automation.
His research activities are since many years in the field of Robotics and Automation; with general interests in all aspects regarding motion planning and control problems within multi-robot cooperating structures; and with focused interests in the field of marine, as well as space robotic applications. He is, and has been, the key research person within different EC funded research projects, of which many of them on marine robotics: in particular, the past projects MAST3-AMADEUS I-1996/1998, MAST2-AMADEUS II-1998/2001, both regarding underwater manipulation; BRITE-EURAM3-RNDT – 1998-2001,on remote robotic inspection; the currently active one COG3AUVS, on cooperative control of AUV teams; TRIDENT, on multipurpose underwater intervention tasks; as well as of many nationally funded ones, still in the field of marine robotics

Abstract: AMADEUS (Autonomous Manipulation for Deep Underwater Sampling) was one of the pioneering projects in the autonomous underwater manipulation framework, conceived in the early nineties and was aimed to conclude its activities during 2000. In fact, starting from 96 with its first phase lasting three years, it had also had a second phase that, partially superimposed with the first, made the project just ending with the old century.
The main objectives on which the overall project focused was the development of mechanical and electronic Hw/Sw technologies and architectures, specifically devoted to underwater manipulation applications. This task was to be performed in a cooperative fashion, by part of multi-arm/ multi-fingered hand systems placed at the sea floor, under the direction of very high level commands cable provided by a suitable, surface located, command and control station.
At that times, the simplification resulting from neglecting the presence of any underwater mobile supporting platform, the related localization system and the acoustic communication between the surface and the submerged system was compensated by the high complexity of the underwater manipulative structure to be entirely developed, as well as by the complexity represented by the related control and coordination problems to be tackled.
On the other hand, since researches closely related with the mentioned lacking part of the assumed framework, were however started to be tackled within different other projects, the intendment was therefore that of contributing to develop convergent technologies, to be successively merged in future more advanced programs (as for instance within the successful later US project SAUVIM and today within the on-going EU project TRIDENT).
The presentation, while shortly reviewing the story of the two AMADEUS projects, aims to highlight the results that were achieved at that time. In particular by showing how these results could later contribute to the development of successive projects and how many of them (especially from the methodological and algorithmic point of view) still represent the basis for currently on-going more advanced research activities in underwater manipulation, and more generally within underwater intervention.

Contacts: Giacomo Marani, PhD
WVU-NASA Robotics Center
1000 Galliher Drive
Fairmont, WV 26554
Phone: 304-333-6071
Giacomo.Marani@mail.wvu.edu

Biography: Giacomo Marani was born in Italy. He received the "Laurea" degree in Electronic Engineering and the PhD degree in Robotics and Automation from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1997 and 2000 respectively. In the past decade he has been with the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he served as acting Principal Investigator and project coordinator of the SAUVIM project (Development of a Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions), heading the technical coordination of the SAUVIM project partners.
He now serves as lead researcher at the WVU Robotic Center for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Space Servicing Capabilities Office, with focus on developments of algorithms for the future NASA mission of robotics satellite servicing.
He is chair of the IEEE Marine Robotics Technical Committee and with the editorial board of the journal of Intelligent Service Robotics.
His primary interests are focused on the development of algorithms for autonomous robotic intervention, including simulation of mechanical systems, sensor fusion, environment interaction with computer vision, real-time programming and advanced solutions for remote operation.

Abstract: Many underwater intervention tasks are today performed using manned submersibles or Remotely Operated Vehicles in tele-operation mode. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles are mostly employed in survey applications. In fact, the low bandwidth and significant time delay inherent in acoustic subsea communications represent a considerable obstacle to remotely operate a manipulation system, making it impossible for remote controllers to react to problems in a timely manner. As a result, only few AUVs are equipped with manipulators for underwater intervention.
SAUVIM (Semi Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Mission) has been developed in order to address this challenging task. One important feature in autonomous intervention is workspace optimization: the vehicle must be capable of autonomously adjust its position to optimize in real time the manipulability. In SAUVIM, the entire vehicle-manipulation system is regarded as a generalized robot with multi-degrees of freedom joints. Confining the manipulability over a predefine threshold with the task reconstruction method, yields to interesting results validated through several underwater experiments, here presented.

Contacts: Prof Pere Ridao

Biography: Pere Ridao was born in Spain in 1969. He received the Ms.C. degree in computer science in 1993 from the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain, and the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering in 2001 from the University of Girona, Spain. His research activity is mainly focused on underwater robotics in research topics such as intelligent control architectures, UUV modelling and identification, simulation, Navigation, Mission Control and real-time systems. He joined the Institute of Informatics and Applications, University of Girona, in September 1995. Currently, he is an associate professor with the Department of Computer Engineering of the University of Girona and the head of the Research Center in Underwater Robotics (CIRS) located in the Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona. He is involved in national and European projects about underwater robotics and some technology transference projects about real-time and embedded systems. Dr. Ridao is member of the IFAC's Technical Committee on Marine Systems, member of the editorial board of Springer's Intelligent Service Robotics journal, secretary of the Spanish OES chapter and also a board member of the Spanish RAS chapter. He is also the leader of the AUTOMAR spanish national network of automation for marine systems.

Abstract: The main goal of the "Reconfigurable Autonomous underwater Vehicle for Intervention" (RAUVI) project is to develop and improve the necessary technologies for autonomously performing an intervention mission in underwater environments. The approach can be summarized in two different steps: (1) survey and (2) intervention. Firstly, the I-AUV explores the region of interest, taking visual data, synchronized with robot navigation. Then, the robot surfaces, and the information is downloaded to the base station, where a computer reconstruction of the explored region is built. By means of a specific human-robot interface to be developed, an operator identifies the object of interest and describes the task to perform. Next, the I-AUV robot navigates again to the region of interest, identifies the target object and performs the intervention task.Therefore, the RAUVI project aims to design and develop an Underwater Autonomous Robot, able to perceive the environment by means of acoustic and optic sensors, and equipped with a robotic arm in order to autonomously perform simple intervention tasks.
RAUVI is a join project funded by the Spanish ministry of Science and Innovation involving teams from 3 Spanish universities UJI, UdG and UIB. The UdG team is responsible for designing and developing the reconfigurable AUV, the UJI team is responsible for the design and development of the robotic arm and the UIB team is responsible for the vision based navigation.

Contacts: Professor David M LANE BSc PhD FRSE FRGS FSUT
Professor of Autonomous Systems Engineering,
Ocean Systems Laboratory, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lanedavid
http://www.oceansystemslab-heriotwatt.com/
D.M.Lane@hw.ac.uk

Biography: David Lane graduated in 1980 with a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and again in 1986 with a PhD in Underwater Robotics. In 1979 he worked offshore in the North Sea as diver/maintainer for British Oceanics Ltd, and from 1980-82 as a Development Engineer at Ferranti Ltd. From 1982 he held a series of research and academic appointments, culminating in a Professorial Chair at Heriot-Watt University in 1998, and visiting Professorships at Florida Atlantic University in 1999 and Edinburgh University from 2006.
In 1995 he took up Directorship of the University’s Ocean Systems Laboratory and lead it’s development to a staff of 30 with £10M total funding from the UK Research Councils, Ministry of Defence, European Union and US Office of Naval Research.
In 2001 he founded SeeByte Ltd (www.seebyte.com) and as CEO until 2010 lead the company’s organic evolution from startup to a multi-million dollar organization, growing at an average 45% pa during the recession, continually cash positive, with 75% of its business in exports to three continents and offices in Edinburgh, San Diego and Seattle. Under his leadership SeeByte won their first $8-figure export contract (US Navy) in 2009 and in 2010 an $8-figure new autonomous vehicle development for the offshore oil industry, in partnership with Subsea 7. In 2007 he became President of SeeByte Inc.
In 1995 he was H.Burr Steinbach Visiting Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and in 2007 was Scientific Advisor to the NATO Undersea Research Centre, La Spezia, Italy. He has been elected to Fellowships of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Geographical Society, the Society for Underwater Technology and the Court of Heriot-Watt University. He regularly accepts invitations to present, most recently at IEEE ICAR, IROS and the Acoustical Society of America events in 2011.
In 2011 he was recipient of the Praxis Unico Impact Award under the best business category for SeeByte.
His research interests are in sensing, control, world modelling, planning and user interaction for autonomous systems.

Abstract: Research on autonomous underwater vehicles for subsea IRM (inspection, repair and maintenance) has been the subject of multiple EU and related projects for nearly two decades.
In the 1990s projects such as UNION, AMADEUS, ARAMIS and SWIMMER tackled challenges from visual servoing and hybrid-position force contact control to dextrous manipulation and docking. In the 2000s further projects such as ALIVE, AUTOTRACKER, AMASON and EXOCET/D demonstrated hands free docking and manipulation, autonomous pipeline survey and related scientific surveys.
The results from these projects have subsequently been taken up in various Joint Industry Projects (JIPs) supported by Oil Companies, Contractors and Navies to de-risk commercial prototypes. These have resulted in COTS dynamic positioning for tethered ROVs, world records for commercial AUV pipeline surveys, AUV cable and ship hull inspection systems, and first variant hover capable AUVs. A significant exemplar of this is the Subsea7/SeeByte Autonomous Inspection Vehicle, currently undergoing trials and due to enter commercial service with Subsea7 in 2012. In parallel, further research is commencing targeted on extending the persistence and robustness of the autonomy these systems can achieve.
The presentation will review some of the successes and failures and the pioneers in these programmes, and the prospects for continued impact from EU and other funded research in the marketplace.

Contacts: Professor Pedro J. Sanz
sanzp@icc.uji.es

Biography: Pedro J. Sanz is Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Jaume I University (Spain), and head of the Interactive and Robotic Systems Lab. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics by the University of Valencia, M.Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University of Valencia and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering by the Jaume I University.
He has been appointed as Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Real-Time Computer Systems (TUM, GERMANY), at LASMEA (Univ. Blaise Pascal, FRANCE), and at LAR-DEIS (University of Bologna, ITALY). Presently working (six monthly Sabbatical period) at the Underwater Robotics Research Center of Girona (SPAIN).
His current research interests are Multisensory based Grasping and Dexterous Manipulation, Telerobotics and Human-Robot Interaction, all of them applied to any kind of real service robotics scenarios, mainly focused on assistive and underwater robotics.

Abstract: TRIDENT proposes a new methodology for multipurpose underwater intervention tasks with diverse potential applications like underwater archaeology, oceanography and offshore industries, and goes beyond present-day methods typically based on manned and / or purpose-built systems. Trident is based on new forms of cooperation between an Autonomous Surface Craft and an Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.
Firstly, the I-AUV performs a path following survey, where it gathers optical and / or acoustic data from the seafloor, whilst the ASC provides geo-referenced navigation data and communications with the end user. The motion of the ASC will be coordinated with that of the I-AUV for precise Ultra Short Base Line positioning and reliable acoustic communications. After the survey, the I-AUV docks with the ASC and sends the data back to a ground station where a map is set up and a target object is identified by the end user. Secondly, the ASC navigates towards a waypoint near the intervention area to search for the object. When the target object has been found, the I-AUV switches to free floating navigation mode. The manipulation of the object takes place through a dextrous hand attached to a redundant robot arm and assisted with proper perception. Particular emphasis will be put on the research of the vehicle's intelligent control architecture to provide the embedded knowledge representation framework and the high level reasoning agents required to enable a high degree of autonomy and on-board decision making of the platform. In summary, after the first year running of TRIDENT, the main envisioned contributions and arising drawbacks will be presented and discussed.
TRIDENT Website: www.irs.uji.es/trident/

Contacts: Dr Alain Maguer
Head, Engineering Technology Division
NATO Undersea Research Centre NURC
Viale San Bartolomeo, 400
19126 LA SPEZIA
Tel: +39 0187527410
Fax: +39 0187527344
maguer@nurc.nato.int

Biography: Alain Maguer received the PhD degree in Acoustics and Signal Processing from the University of Lyon, France in 1986. Between 1986 and 1991 he worked for Thomson Marconi sonars at Sophia-Antipolis, France. In 1991, he joigned SACLANTCEN, the NATO Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia, Italay where he worked on transient detection and classification, and on buried mine detection and classification. In 1999, he went to Thales Underwater Systems in Sydney, Australia to lead the General Sonar Studies Group. In August 2002, he came back to France to join the Technical directorate of Thales Underwater systems in Sophia-Antipolis. From 2003, he was the Airborne Sonar Technical manager at Thales Underwater systems in Brest. In July 2007, he joined the NATO Research Undersea Research Centre in La Spezia where he is currently having the position of Engineering Technology Division Head. His research interests are sonar, autonomous vehicles, gliders and towed arrays

Abstract: The mine disposal programme of work at NURC is developing and testing a new system based on the synergies between an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and a simple unmanned underwater kamikaze vehicle (UUV) equipped with a sonar-aided navigation system.
For reducing the cost associated with the underwater kamikaze vehicle, all the expensive sensors generally used by the UUV for navigation (e.g., DVL, inertial sensors, etc.) have been removed from it and transferred to the USV. Hence, the UUV position is estimated automatically by the forward looking sonar onboard the USV. The range and bearing data, together with the x and y-axis position of the sonar head, are acoustically communicated from the USV to the UUV. Using this information, and the z-axis position coming from onboard inexpensive pressure sensor, the UUV can calculate its 3D position in space and, aided by a Kalman filter, controls its trajectory towards the target.
The paper is describing how this complex system has been developed. Particularly, For example, in order to realize this experiment, the NURC USV was provided with a backseat driver capability using the MOOS autonomy middleware developed at Oxford University and MIT. The USV was heavily modified to include the integration of multiple payloads: a forward looking sonar, an acoustic modem, an underwater pan and tilt unit, a variable depth system for the sonar, and a release mechanism for the autonomous underwater vehicle.
All these devices have been integrated using MOOS for inter-process communications and new behaviors have been implemented in the back-seat driver to develop new strategies to support the disposal mission. Different approaches for sensor data communication has been discussed and considered.
The new behaviors allow the possibility to keep an object in the field-of-view of the sonar by combining pan and tilt unit and USV control strategies, and give the ability to USV to circle around or keep the distance from an object detected in the sonar image. All the processes are now running on an embedded computer which is connected via Ethernet to the front-seat controller and to the shore station.
In summary, the presentation provides an example of a complex system and a solution for the integration of multiple devices and the synergy of different systems.

Contacts:

Biography:

Abstract:

Contacts: Giuseppe Conte
Professor of System Theory
Department of Information Engineering
Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
gconte@univpm.it

Biography: After receiving the Doctoral Degree (Laurea) in Mathematics in 1974 from the University of Genoa, Italy, Giuseppe Conte was Lecturer, from 1974 to 1985, and Associated Professor, from 1985 to 1990, at the University of Genoa and he is currently Full Professor of System Theory, from 1990, at the Polytechnic University of Marche (formerly University of Ancona), Italy. He has been Fulbright Scholar in 1980 and 1987, NATO Senior Fellow in 1987, Visiting Professor at the Ohio State University of Columbus, Ohio, in 1987 and at the Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Nantes, France, in 1988. He has been Associated Editor of SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization from 1990 to 1995 and he is currently Associated Editor of IMA Journal of Mathematical Control and Information. He is currently Chairman of the Italian Chapter of IEEE - Control Systems Society and Chairman of the IFAC Technical Committee on Linear System TC 2.2. His research interests concern algebraic and geometric methods in linear and nonlinear system and control theory, industrial robotics and underwater robotics.

Abstract: The talk describes the structure and the characteristics of an integrated system for underwater intervention that consists of two ROV’s of different dimensions. The larger ROV (a DOE small work-class Phantom 4) is employed to carry the smaller one (a VideoRay Pro4 mini ROV) in the intervention area, so to facilitate its usage as a mobile appendix, in case proximity of large vehicles may disturb, modify or damage important features of the site. The mini ROV is tethered to the large one, which, in turns, is tethered to a surface supply vessel. This configuration allows the mini ROV to work at considerable distance from the supply vessel, without the burden of a long umbilical, with the large ROV acting as a mother ship for the mini ROV. An important feature of the integrated system is that the presence of the large ROV offers the possibility to monitor from a close position, either by optical devices or by acoustic ones, the activity of the smaller one, providing the operator with an external view of the on-going situation. The control architecture of the integrated system consists of functional modules that manage at low level the USBL/DGPS system, the large ROV, the mini ROV and the operator interface under the supervision and coordination of a higher level Supervisory Control System. Position information acquired by a USBL acoustic system is used by the Supervisory Control System to keep the large ROV within a desired distance from the mini ROV, while this latter is remotely guided by an operator onboard the supply vessel. Testing and validation of the integrated system are currently carried on and its use in the exploration and intervention missions on fragile underwater sites of archaeological or biological interest, at various depths, is planned for the next future.

Contacts: Hyun-Taek Choi, Ph.D.
TEL:+82-42-866-3813
FAX:+82-42-866-3819
htchoiphd@gmail.com

Biography: Dr. Hyun-Taek Choi received the B.S, M.S., and Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from Hanyang University of Seoul, Korea. in 1991, 1993, and 2000, respectively. From 1993 to 1995, he was a Researcher in the Multimedia Laboratory of Korea Telecommunication. From 2000 to 2003, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is currently a principal researcher in the Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute. His current research interests are intelligent underwater robot with robust and optimal control, embedded system, navigation system, sensor fusion and most importantly artificial intelligence.

Abstract: This talk is about methods of vision and acoustic information based object recognition in the underwater environment. The importance of finding a robust solution to detection or tracking interesting objects cannot be overstated because being able to identify target objects is paramount in guaranteeing the success of autonomous missions, such as navigation, searching missions, surveillance, etc. Unfortunately, the underwater environment open deals with many difficult conditions so that it might be naive to expect the underwater robots to show the same performance when they are equipped with the well known technologies that are used in other aerial or land robots. As the beginning phase of this research, we started with a few reasonable assumptions: 1) The experimental environment for our robot is fully structured and 2)The robot will detect or track only artificial landmark. However, we are planning to release these constraints as we make progress in our research in the future. In the talk, we will present the vision based recognition method as well as the results that we have achieved so far. These experiments include several comparative studies. For example, in the result section, we have found that the state of the art feature point based recognition method is significantly degraded in the turbid underwater condition. Besides, we will discuss the results of our underwater acoustic signal analysis methods. Employing this algorithm, we could identify the sound source and precisely locate the bearing angle of the signal source with respect to the receiver’s coordinate frame.
In order to measure the performances of our methods, we created a hovering type underwater robot named yShark, which is a test-bed robot for this research project. yShark is developed by Korea Ocean Research & Development Institution(KORDI). It is a hovering type robot with 4 horizontal thrusters and 2 vertical thrusters. In terms of sensor system, it is equipped with 2 cameras, 2hydrophones, FLS, AHRS, pressure sensor, DVL and OAS sensors. Finally, the sensor perception, control algorithms, vision algorithms are processed through PC-104 system.

Contacts: Prof. Andreas Birk
Jacobs University
Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany

Biography: Andreas Birk is a professor (associate) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Jacobs University Bremen where he leads the robotics group. He started at Jacobs University in Fall 2001 while rejecting an offer for a professorship (C3) at the University of Rostock. Before he joined Jacobs University, he held a research-mandate of the Flemish Society for Applied Research, IWT. He was in addition from October 1997 on a visiting professor (docent) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He also worked as a visiting professor (C3) at the Universität Koblenz-Landau in the winter-semester of 1999/2000. During the almost six years at the VUB, Andreas Birk was a member of the Artificial Intelligence Lab, which he joined as Postdoc in April 1996. In 1995 he received his doctorate from the Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, where he previously studied Computer Science from fall 1989 to spring 1993.

Abstract: Intervention links perception with physical interactions, which both are two non-trivial challenges in the underwater domain. This presentation focuses on the first part, i.e., perception for intervention, especially the benefits of full 3D models of the objects/scenario to be interacted with. As stereo cameras and "3D" sonars only deliver 2.5D data in form of range images in one sensor snapshot or scan, proper 3D perception requires the integration of multiple scans, i.e., good navigation and/or the 6-DoF registration of the sensor data. It is thus related to 3D mapping. Research on 3D mapping with large surface patches is presented here including work with a Tritech Ecplise sonar. The underlying methods include the fast and robust fitting of large planar patches into noisy 2.5D sensor data, an efficient 6 DoF registration method for plane sets fitted into two scans, and first results on extending this work to curved surfaces in form of quadrics. This work is of particular interest to intervention for several reasons. First, the large surface patches lead to a compact representation. Second, the surface gradients determined by the surface fitting and the geometric boundary outlines are highly beneficial for grasp planning and manipulation. Third, the surface fitting includes the determination of proper uncertainty estimates that are especially valuable under the challenging sensing conditions of underwater applications.

Contacts: Prof Yvan Petillot
Heriot-Watt University
School of EPS
Riccarton Campus
EH144AS
Edinburgh
Tel: 0131 451 8277
http://www.ece.eps.hw.ac.uk/~ceeyrp
Y.R.Petillot@hw.ac.uk

Biography: Prof. Yvan R. Petillot, FIET, was born in Saint-Etienne, France in 1969. He received is French Engineering Degree from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne in 1991, his MSc By research (French DEA) and PhD from the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in 1992 and 1996 respectively, working on optical object recognition using Ferro-electric liquid crystal devices. After graduating, he was briefly employed as a software engineer by Alcatel Business Systems in Brest before moving Heriot-Watt University to work as a Research Associate in the Oceans Systems Laboratory in 1998. Since moving to Heriot-Watt University, his research interests have included signal and image processing, computer vision and their applications to subsea robotics. He has particular interests in the sonar design simulation and analysis of sonar imagery. He is also involved in the design and development of autonomous underwater vehicles and has a keen interest in autonomy. He was visiting scientist at the NATO Undersea Research Centre in 2005 and is a non- executive of SeeByte Ltd, a company he co-founded in 2001 to commercialise subsea smart technologies whucb has now grown to over 40 employees. Prof. Petillot has lead numerous EPSRC and EU funded research programs and is the author of over 100 publications in international journals and conferences.

Abstract: In this talk we will review recent work on collaborative and goal based planning. Traditional autonomous robots have pre-planned missions and require specialist and intimate knowledge of the system to interact with it. The focus of the work presented here is two-fold: firstly, abstract the complexity of the system to enable non specialist to interact with it, focusing on the what rather than the how, secondly design an architecture which enables online planning and diagnostics. Recently, there has been a push towards service oriented approaches in robotics to enable high level planners to interact with a large number of platforms for a large number of missions without requiring the intimate knowledge of the system's design and engineering details. We present a new service oriented architecture based on existing standards which we hope will facilitate its adoption. Our middleware is the Robotic Operating System from willow garage on which we have developed and extra service layer. This layer enables service discovery and composition to select, combine and monitor tasks. Our services are based on the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) service set. Examples for the underwater domain will be given and demonstrated.

Contacts: Gaurav S. Sukhatme
Professor and Director of Research
Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California
Editor-in-Chief, Autonomous Robots
http://robotics.usc.edu/~gaurav
gaurav@usc.edu

Biography: Gaurav S. Sukhatme is a Professor of Computer Science (joint appointment in Electrical Engineering) at the University of Southern California (USC). He received his undergraduate education at IIT Bombay in Computer Science and Engineering, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from USC. He is the co-director of the USC Robotics Research Laboratory and the director of the USC Robotic Embedded Systems Laboratory which he founded in 2000. His research interests are in estimation and planning problems associated with networked robots and body area networks. He is a fellow of the IEEE and a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the Okawa foundation research award. He is one of the founders of the Robotics Science and Systems conference. He was program chair of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation and is program chair of the 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Robots and Systems. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Autonomous Robots and has served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, and on the editorial board of IEEE Pervasive Computing.

Abstract: Over the past decade, the USC Robotic Embedded Systems Laboratory and the USC Center for Integrated Networked Aquatic Platforms have worked on several problems in multi-robot planning for underwater robot teams. This talk will give an overview of our findings in this area with an emphasis on intervention. We will describe recent algorithmic results as well lessons learned from field studies. the talk will conclude with a discussion of open problems in the area.

Contacts: Ph.D. Alessio Turetta
Graal Tech S.r.l.
Via Jacopo Ruffini 9R, 16128
Genova - Italy
www.graaltech.it
alessio.turetta@graaltech.it

Biography: Alessio Turetta graduated in 2000 in Software Engineering from University of Genova, and received its Ph.D. in Robotics in 2005 from the same University.

After a brief experience as a Business Analyst in McKinsey & Co, in 2002 he joined Graal Tech as a control system consultant. Currently he is a partner of the Company, other than a mechatronic specialist of the R&D sector.
He has been working on several research projects, mainly in the field of underwater robotics, dealing with both managerial aspects and technical topics. He is also in the development team of eFOLAGA, the autonomous underwater vehicle commercialized by Graal Tech.

In parallel with the Graal Tech experience, since 2005, he is a research assistant at the Department of Communication, Computer and System Science at the University of Genova, where he gives lessons on Control Systems for Mechatronic Devices and Embedded Systems. Since 2009 he also yearly gives a brief version of the same Embedded System course at the Warsaw University of Technology, as a visiting Professor.

Abstract: The talk will present details of the innovative Modular Underwater Manipulator developed by Graal Tech. The robot has been conceived within the EU-funded TRIDENT project and it is currently at an advanced stage of development. As the name suggests, it has been designed by adopting a modular approach: two kinds of electrically-driven joints are available (respectively with one and two motion axis) together with a set of links for connecting the joints. By varying the number of basic modules (joints and links) or the way they are interconnected, several different kinematic configurations can be obtained. The resulting benefit is a high level of re-configurability: depending on the specific mission’s needs, the user is in the conditions of selecting and obtaining the better manipulator in terms of both mechanical characteristics (sizes and weight) and functional specifications (number of axis and their relative positioning).