Diving trials in the world’s deepest pool in Montegrotto

The EU project ‘Cognitive Autonomous Diving Buddy (CADDY)’ successfully finished its first year review including experimental trials in the Y-40 pool in Montegrotto, Italy. Within CADDY, the Jacobs Robotics Group is researching new processes to enable the interaction between underwater robots and divers as well as possibilities for underwater robots to assist divers during complex underwater missions.

February 11, 2015

The Jacobs researchers are working on 3D underwater perception (e.g. to track divers and to recognize their gestures) and 3D mapping (provided by the robot during archeological missions).

With a depth of 40 meters the Y-40 pool, where the recent trials took place, is the deepest pool world-wide. It is also a large complex environment with several platforms, extended artificial caves, as well as a dry tunnel and multiple windows for monitoring the ongoing activities. This specialist pool is therefore perfectly suited for experiments involving divers and to illustrate the project results of the first year.

The CADDY project unites scientists from different fields employing an interdisciplinary approach in researching the optimized optimal interactions between humans and machines. The University of Zagreb is coordinating seven European project partners which also include Jacobs University.

The research group of Andreas Birk, Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, is developing methods for automated 3D perception and 3D mapping. “In the first year, we concentrated on the development of machine perception to recognize and track divers”, explains Prof. Birk. “This is quite hard to do underwater as visibility tends to be limited and the robot vehicle is never standing perfectly still. The experiments with multiple professional divers in the Y-40 pool with its complex structure where hence very useful for our research. We are also very glad that we received very positive feedback during the review from external experts and the EU funding office for our work.”

About the CADDY research project
CADDY researchers aim to contribute to the development of a new breed of technological systems to monitor the behavior of human divers and assist them during the execution of demanding missions at sea. The scientists focus on research and development of setting up symbiotic links between a human diver and a set of companion autonomous robots by developing a multicomponent, highly cognitive underwater robotic system capable of learning, interpreting, and adapting to the diver’s behavior and physical state.

The core of the proposed concept consists of a diver, an autonomous underwater robot and an autonomous surface robot. A diver will interact with the companion autonomous underwater robot that will maneuver underwater in the vicinity of the diver and exhibit cognitive behavior with regard to the diver actions. The robot can also take over interactive tasks such as transporting objects, localized mapping the work area or a by generating a 3D model of a found object. CADDY research findings will be tested in different application scenarios, for example in search and rescue missions as well as underwater archaeology. The project is funded as part of the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme FP7 - Challenge 2: Cognitive Systems and Robotics - under grant agreement n° 611373.

CADDY Partners:
University of Zagreb – Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Croatia (project coordinator)
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
Instituto Superior Technico, Portugal
Jacobs University, Germany
University of Vienna, Austria
University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Divers Alert Network Europe Foundation – DAN Europe, Malta.

More info: www.caddy-fp7.eu [1]

Contact:
Andreas Birk | Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Tel: +49 421 200-3113 | Email: a.birk@jacobs-university.de [2]