Development of an Unmanned Surface Vehicle for the Emergency Response Mission of the ‘Sanchi’ Oil Tanker Collision and Explosion Accident

Abstract

Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) as unmanned intelligent devices can replace humans to perform missions more efficiently and safely in dangerous areas. However, due to the complex navigation environment and special mission requirements, USVs face many challenges in emergency response missions for marine oil spill accidents. To solve these challenges in the emergency response mission of the ‘Sanchi’ oil tanker collision and explosion accident, we designed and deployed an USV to perform the missions of real-time scanning and water sampling in the shipwreck waters. Compared with the previous USVs, our USV owned the following characteristics: Firstly, the improved navigation control algorithms (path following and collision avoidance) can provide high navigation accuracy while ensuring navigation safety; Secondly, an improved launch and recovery system (LARS) enabled the USV to be quickly deployed and recovered in the mission area; Thirdly, a new sampling system was specially designed for the USV. Our USV completed the missions successfully, not only providing a lot of information for rescuers but also offering a scientific basis for follow-up work.