1. Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
EU-MOP
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Dennis Fritsch Fraunhofer-Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA)
Athens, June 2006

2. Introduction
The EU-MOP robots should be able to response to oil spills autonomously.
Autonomously means that each unit will have an energy system and an oil skimming device as well as that the EU-MOP units will make its own decisions how to response to the oil spill.
Thus, each unit needs (artificial) intelligence, which will be given to the units with the help of sensors and control systems.

3. Control of the EU-MOP units
In order to achieve an highly robust and flexible oil response system the swarm intelligence approach has been selected as control paradigm for the EU-MOP robots.
Thus, the EU-MOP swarm is a homogeneous group of robots without any hierarchies or central control system.

4. Control of the EU-MOP units
Example: Oil spill in a harbour, several very small patches of oil have to be recovered:

5. Control of the EU-MOP units
Strategy of each robot:

6. Control of the EU-MOP units
4 following robots
1 robot moving random paths
oil
pier

7. Control of the EU-MOP units
obstacle occurs

8. Control of the EU-MOP units
swarm 1:
1 following robots
1 robot moving random paths
swarm 2:
2 following robots
1 robot moving random paths

9. Control of the EU-MOP units
swarm 1 and swarm 2
merge, but the “leading” robot has a malfunction.

10. Control of the EU-MOP units
swarm will again be split into two swarms with each 1 “leading” robot and 1 following robot.
Thus, the EU-MOP system will be very flexible and fault-tolerant.

11. Sensors for the EU-MOP robots
Nevertheless, the EU-MOP robots will need several sensors, e.g.:
for the detection of oil or the measurement of the thickness of the oil spill,
for absolute or relative positioning of itself, its neighbours, all other units, the mother ship, etc.,
for the detection of collisions with other units, shipwrecks, debris etc.,
for winds, currents, etc.,
for the internal state of the unit (malfunction, full of oil, energy low etc.)
as well as a communication system for communication with other units, with the mother ship and with a human operator.

12. Sensors for the EU-MOP robots
Sensors might increase the performance of the robots, nevertheless, sensors also have disadvantages, e.g.:
increased costs
increased weight and volume
increased consumption of power
increased amount of information that has to be processed
Thus, the question is: What is the best sensor configuration for the EU-MOP robots? And related to that: What are the best strategies in order to response to the oil spill.
These questions will be answered with the help of the simulation technique.

13. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Architecture of the simulation

14. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Oil Fate model

15. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Robot / Swarm Simulation

16. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation
water
oil slick
harbour
coast

17. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation
1 unit

18. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation

19. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation

20. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation

21. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation

22. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Visualisation

23. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Comparison of two types of swarms:
swarm A consists of units without oil sensor
swarm B consists of units with oil sensor.
type B:
will be able to move intelligent
type A:
will not be able to move intelligent

24. Simulation of the EU-MOP robots
Comparison of two types of swarms:
Conclusion (for this scenario)
The larger the swarm the better the recovery time.
The better the sensor configuration the better the recovery time.
Nevertheless, the swarm without oil sensors reaches for large swarm sizes more or less the same recovery time as the swarm with oil sensor.
Swarm size (N) 1 2 3 4 5 10 20
Recovery time of swarm A
52627
20496
16843
14170
13207
5564
2905
Recovery time of swarm B
37293
14416
11360
9132
8134
4026
2860

25. Conclusion The simulation will be able to determine
the recovery time,
the energy consumption,
the quantity of recovery oil
the quantity of oil that polluted the coast,
etc.
These date will be the basis
for an assessment of the EU-MOP units, and
for a cost-benefit-analysis.
Thus, this proceeding will ensure that the EU- MOP consortium will develop a highly effective, flexible and robust oil response system.