Squalo – um framework de ASV para coleta de lixo

Abstract

Water is a precious resource for humankind, but for a long time, it has suffered from pollution from chemical products and solid waste to various types of residues. Because of that, it became necessary to monitor and protect this resource. In this study, using 3D prototyping technology, an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) design was proposed. This vehicle can collect waste on the water surface and acquire data from water with sensors. However, along with problems concerning electronics, mechanics, and instrumentation, robot design involves complex programming tasks, such as sensing, perception, navigation, and control. Furthermore, simulated physics like water floating are specific to the domain. A robotic framework was developed to support the development and experimentation of such algorithms in a reliable simulation environment. The framework lifecycle is described as follows: Given the waste coordinates, the controller receives the data to process and compute the navigation to reach the destination, generating force commands to be applied in each engine of the vehicle. As concept proof, a nonlinear MPC (Model Predictive Controller) was implemented using the framework functions, providing standard control metrics to test different configurations.