Inertial-measurement-based catenary shape estimation of underwater cables for tethered robots

Abstract

This paper deals with the estimation of the shape of a catenary for a negatively buoyant cable, connecting a pair of underwater robots in a robot chain. The new estimation method proposed here is based on the calculation of local tangents thanks to the data acquired from inertial measurement units (IMUs), which are attached to the cable near its ends. This method is compared with a vision-based estimation method that was developed previously. Experiments are conducted, in the air and in a pool, using a motion capture system for ground truth. The results obtained show that the new method significantly improves the estimation of the catenary height. Furthermore, the identification of the cable shape is not affected by the limits of the camera's field of view and by the image projection, resulting in increased accuracy and range, without singularities.