RETRACTED: An autonomous underwater vehicle docking system based on optical guidance (Retracted Article)

This paper reports our progress on the development of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) docking system based on optical guidance. The configuration of the docking system is introduced. A dock that carries a circular light emitter is designed to give guidance. The AUV we developed is equipped with an optical system to detect the light from the dock. As compared with vision-based scheme, the tracking system is simple and effective. The behavior of the optical sensor in the light field is thoroughly analyzed in this paper. A closed loop control scheme is developed. Experiment results verified the effectiveness of the docking system. An improved control algorithm based on depth error compensation is also proposed in this paper so as to improve the robustness and adaptiveness of the docking system. Preliminary results show the feasibility of the improvements; the AUV can get into the dock even under some adverse initial conditions. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.