Sediment Sampling in Estuarine Mudflats with an Aerial-Ground Robotic Team.
This paper presents a robotic team suited for bottom sediment sampling and retrieval in mudflats, targeting environmental monitoring tasks. The robotic team encompasses a four-wheel-steering ground vehicle, equipped with a drilling tool designed to be able to retain wet soil, and a multi-rotor aerial vehicle for dynamic aerial imagery acquisition. On-demand aerial imagery, properly fused on an aerial mosaic, is used by remote human operators for specifying the robotic mission and supervising its execution. This is crucial for the success of an environmental monitoring study, as often it depends on human expertise to ensure the statistical significance and accuracy of the sampling procedures. Although the literature is rich on environmental monitoring sampling procedures, in mudflats, there is a gap as regards including robotic elements. This paper closes this gap by also proposing a preliminary experimental protocol tailored to exploit the capabilities offered by the robotic system. Field trials in the south bank of the river Tagus' estuary show the ability of the robotic system to successfully extract and transport bottom sediment samples for offline analysis. The results also show the efficiency of the extraction and the benefits when compared to (conventional) human-based sampling.
INTROSYS SA, Introsys-Global Control System Designers, Parkim- Parque Industrial da Moita Rua dos Girassóis, n°1, Lote 6, Armazém A3, 2860-274 Moita, Portugal. pedro.deusdado@introsys.eu.
Pedro
P
Deusdado
INTROSYS SA, Introsys-Global Control System Designers, Parkim- Parque Industrial da Moita Rua dos Girassóis, n°1, Lote 6, Armazém A3, 2860-274 Moita, Portugal. magno.guedes@introsys.eu.
Magno
M
Guedes
INTROSYS SA, Introsys-Global Control System Designers, Parkim- Parque Industrial da Moita Rua dos Girassóis, n°1, Lote 6, Armazém A3, 2860-274 Moita, Portugal. andre.silva@introsys.eu.
André
A
Silva
CTS-UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), FCT Campus, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. fam@uninova.pt.
Francisco
F
Marques
CTS-UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), FCT Campus, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. emp@uninova.pt.
Eduardo
E
Pinto
CTS-UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), FCT Campus, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. paulomrpt@gmail.com.
Paulo
P
Rodrigues
CTS-UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), FCT Campus, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. andre.lourenco@uninova.pt.
André
A
Lourenço
CTS-UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), FCT Campus, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. rmm@uninova.pt.
Ricardo
R
Mendonça
ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal. pedro.santana@iscte.pt.|Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal. pedro.santana@iscte.pt.
Pedro
P
Santana
Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, E.N. 10 km 139.7, 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal. corisco@ctn.tecnico.ulisboa.pt.
José
J
Corisco
Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares (C2TN), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, E.N. 10 km 139.7, 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal. smarta@ctn.tecnico.ulisboa.pt.
Susana Marta
SM
Almeida
Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (APA), Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente, I.P., Rua da Murgueira, 9/9A-Zambujal, Ap. 7585, 2610-124 Amadora, Portugal. luis.portugal@apambiente.pt.
Luís
L
Portugal
INTROSYS SA, Introsys-Global Control System Designers, Parkim- Parque Industrial da Moita Rua dos Girassóis, n°1, Lote 6, Armazém A3, 2860-274 Moita, Portugal. raquel.caldeira@introsys.eu.
Raquel
R
Caldeira
CTS-UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), FCT Campus, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. jab@uninova.pt.
José
J
Barata
INTROSYS SA, Introsys-Global Control System Designers, Parkim- Parque Industrial da Moita Rua dos Girassóis, n°1, Lote 6, Armazém A3, 2860-274 Moita, Portugal. luis.flores@introsys.eu.
Luis
L
Flores
UAV; UGV; environmental monitoring; estuarine mudflats; field robots; heavy metals monitoring; multi-robot system; radiological monitoring