Costanzi Riccardo, Fenucci Davide, Manzari Vincenzo, Micheli Michele, Morlando Luca, Terracciano Daniele, Caiti Andrea, Stifani Mirko, Tesei Alessandra
DII (Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione), Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Marine Autonomous & Robotic Systems, National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Southampton, United Kingdom.
Front Robot AI. 2020 Jul 14;7:91. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2020.00091. eCollection 2020.
Complex maritime missions, both above and below the surface, have traditionally been carried out by manned surface ships and submarines equipped with advanced sensor systems. Unmanned Maritime Vehicles (UMVs) are increasingly demonstrating their potential for improving existing naval capabilities due to their rapid deployability, easy scalability, and high reconfigurability, offering a reduction in both operational time and cost. In addition, they mitigate the risk to personnel by leaving the man far-from-the-risk but in-the-loop of decision making. In the long-term, a clear interoperability framework between unmanned systems, human operators, and legacy platforms will be crucial for effective joint operations planning and execution. However, the present multi-vendor multi-protocol solutions in multi-domain UMVs activities are hard to interoperate without common mission control interfaces and communication protocol schemes. Furthermore, the underwater domain presents significant challenges that cannot be satisfied with the solutions developed for terrestrial networks. In this paper, the interoperability topic is discussed blending a review of the technological growth from 2000 onwards with recent authors' in-field experience; finally, important research directions for the future are given. Within the broad framework of interoperability in general, the paper focuses on the aspect of interoperability among UMVs not neglecting the role of the human operator in the loop. The picture emerging from the review demonstrates that interoperability is currently receiving a high level of attention with a great and diverse deal of effort. Besides, the manuscript describes the experience from a sea trial exercise, where interoperability has been demonstrated by integrating heterogeneous autonomous UMVs into the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) network, using different robotic middlewares and acoustic modem technologies to implement a multistatic active sonar system. A perspective for the interoperability in marine robotics missions emerges in the paper, through a discussion of current capabilities, in-field experience and future advanced technologies unique to UMVs. Nonetheless, their application spread is slowed down by the lack of human confidence. In fact, an interoperable system-of-systems of autonomous UMVs will require operators involved only at a supervisory level. As trust develops, endorsed by stable and mature interoperability, human monitoring will be diminished to exploit the tremendous potential of fully autonomous UMVs.
传统上，复杂的海上任务，无论是水面还是水下的，都是由配备先进传感器系统的有人驾驶水面舰艇和潜艇执行的。无人海上航行器（UMV）因其快速部署能力、易于扩展和高度可重构性，在提升现有海军能力方面日益展现出潜力，能够减少作战时间和成本。此外，通过让人员远离风险但仍参与决策循环，无人海上航行器降低了人员面临的风险。从长远来看，无人系统、人类操作员和传统平台之间清晰的互操作性框架对于有效的联合行动规划和执行至关重要。然而，目前多领域无人海上航行器活动中的多供应商多协议解决方案，在没有通用任务控制接口和通信协议方案的情况下很难实现互操作。此外，水下领域存在重大挑战，为地面网络开发的解决方案无法满足这些挑战。本文结合对2000年以来技术发展的回顾以及作者近期的实地经验，讨论了互操作性这一主题；最后给出了未来重要的研究方向。在一般互操作性的广泛框架内，本文聚焦于无人海上航行器之间的互操作性方面，同时不忽视人类操作员在循环中的作用。回顾得出的情况表明，互操作性目前受到高度关注，各方付出了大量且多样的努力。此外，本文还描述了一次海上试验演习的经验，在该演习中，通过将异构自主无人海上航行器集成到北约海洋研究与实验中心（CMRE）网络，利用不同的机器人中间件和声学调制解调器技术实现了多基地有源声纳系统，展示了互操作性。通过讨论无人海上航行器当前的能力、实地经验和未来独特的先进技术，本文展现了海洋机器人任务中互操作性的前景。尽管如此，由于缺乏人类信任，它们的应用推广受到了阻碍。事实上，一个可互操作的自主无人海上航行器系统体系将要求操作员仅处于监督层面。随着信任的发展，在稳定和成熟的互操作性支持下，人类监控将减少，以充分发挥完全自主无人海上航行器的巨大潜力。
