A new method for underwater archaeological surveying using sensors and unmanned platforms (original) (raw)
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2010
The goals of this article are twofold. First, we detail the operations and discuss the results of the 2005 Chios an-cient shipwreck survey. This survey was conducted by an international team of engineers, archaeologists, and natural scientists off the Greek island of Chios in the northeastern Aegean Sea using an autonomous under-water vehicle (AUV) built specifically for high-resolution site inspection and characterization. Second, using the survey operations as context, we identify the specific challenges of adapting AUV technology for deep water archaeology and describe how our team addressed these challenges during the Chios expedition. After identifying the state of the art in robotic tools for deep water archaeology, we discuss opportunities in which new developments and research (e.g., AUV platforms, underwater imaging, remote sensing, and navigation techniques) will improve the rapid assessment of deep water archaeological sites. It is our hope that by report-
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015
In the framework of the ARROWS project (September 2012 -August 2015), a venture funded by the European Commission, several modular Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) have been developed to the main purposes of mapping, diagnosing, cleaning, and securing underwater and coastal archaeological sites. These AUVs consist of modular mobile robots, designed and manufactured according to specific suggestions formulated by a pool of archaeologists featuring long-standing experience in the field of Underwater Cultural Heritage preservation. The vehicles are typically equipped with acoustic modems to communicate during the dive and with different payload devices to sense the environment. The selected sensors represent appealing choices to the oceanographic engineer since they provide complementary information about the surrounding environment. The main topics discussed in this paper concern i) performing a systematic mapping of the marine seafloors, ii) processing the output maps to detect and classify potential archaeological targets and finally iii) developing dissemination systems with the purpose of creating virtual scenes as a photorealistic and informative representation of the surveyed underwater sites.
OCEANS 2015 - Genova, 2015
In the framework of the ARROWS project (FP7 Environment 308724, September 2012 -August 2015, venture funded by the European Commission, modular Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have been developed to the main purposes of mapping, diagnosing, cleaning, and securing of underwater and coastal archaeological sites. These AUVs consist of modular mobile robots, designed and manufactured according to specific directions formulated by a group of expert archaeologists, the Archaeological Advisory Group (AAG). A preliminary fleet of mobile robots, with supplied functionalities that can be adjusted on the mission purpose, has been put together. The vehicles are typically equipped with acoustic modems to communicate during the dive and with different payload devices to sense the environment: a pair of synchronized digital cameras operating in the visible light range, a structured light source (blue laser) plus led illuminators and, depending on the mission requirement, a multibeam forward looking echo-sounder or a side looking sonar. These sensors represent appealing choices to the oceanographic engineer since they provide complementary information about the surrounding environment. Generally speaking acoustic sensors are exploited to create large scale maps of the environment while cameras provide more detailed images of the targets. The main goal of the ARROWS missions is to perform a systematic mapping of the marine seafloors and to process the output maps to detect and classify potential archaeological targets.
The ARROWS project: adapting and developing robotics technologies for underwater archaeology
IFAC-PapersOnLine, 2015
ARchaeological RObot systems for the World's Seas (ARROWS) EU Project proposes to adapt and develop low-cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) technologies to significantly reduce the cost of archaeological operations, covering the full extent of archaeological campaign. ARROWS methodology is to identify the archaeologists requirements in all phases of the campaign and to propose related technological solutions. Starting from the necessities identified by archaeological project partners in collaboration with the Archaeology Advisory Group, a board composed of European archaeologists from outside ARROWS, the aim is the development of a heterogeneous team of cooperating AUVs capable of comply with a complete archaeological autonomous mission. Three new different AUVs have been designed in the framework of the project according to the archaeologists' indications: MARTA, characterized by a strong hardware modularity for ease of payload and propulsion systems configuration change; U-CAT, a turtle inspired bio-mimetic robot devoted to shipwreck penetration and A Size AUV, a vehicle of small dimensions and weight easily deployable even by a single person. These three vehicles will cooperate within the project with AUVs already owned by ARROWS partners exploiting a distributed high-level control software based on the World Model Service (WMS), a storage system for the environment knowledge, updated in real-time through online payload data process, in the form of an ontology. The project includes also the development of a cleaning tool for well-known artifacts maintenance operations. The paper presents the current stage of the project that will lead to overall system final demonstrations, during Summer 2015, in two different scenarios, Sicily (Italy) and Baltic Sea (Estonia).
Precision survey and archaeological methodology in deep water
ENALIA: The Journal of the Hellenic Institute of …, 2002
New technologies allow archaeologists to explore the human past in the depths of the ocean, far beyond the 50 meter depth boundary set by SCUBA diving. Using robots and advanced sensors originally developed for other applications, social scientists now are following the path of marine scientists, adapting deep submergence technologies for their own research. Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) allow archaeologists to survey the sea floor to depths of 6000 m. This brings 98% of the world's ocean floor within reach, and increases dramatically the number of underwater sites available for archaeological study. Several projects in the past five years in the Mediterranean and Black Seas have proven the scientific merit of archaeology in deep water and trained an international cadre of archaeologists in the new technology. Experience shows it is imperative that work in deep water be collaborative. Projects are particularly fruitful when they bring together as a team technologists familiar with the systems, archaeologists trained in the methods of deep water work, and archaeologists specializing in the period, cultures, and geographical regions pertinent to the shipwrecks. A key lesson is that while technology plays a significant part in this work, it must be combined with the research designs, methodology, and insights of archaeologists to form deep water archaeology into a rigorous scientific practice. Toward this goal, underwater vehicles, precision navigation, and remote sensors designed specifically for archaeology will allow archaeologists to make fundamental discoveries about ancient cultures.
Data gathering in underwater archaeology by means of a remotely operated vehicle
This work describes the procedures and methodology employed in recent mission at sea for gathering data from submerged sites of archaeological interest. The emphasis in this activity is mainly in developing, testing and validating solutions that simplify the work of archaeologist by employing unmanned robotic vehicles and automatic procedures and that can be applied to deep water sites that are not reachable by divers.
Signal Processing for Underwater Archaeology
Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Image Mining. Theory and Applications, 2015
About three million wrecks lie scattered on the oceans' seafloors. This huge patrimony is actually threatened by criminal enterprises having advanced tools available for localization and rescue operations. ARROWS, a currently ongoing EU FP7 project, is an example of the effective commitment between cultural institutions and the scientific community towards the safeguard of the sunken cultural heritage. ARROWS is devoted to advanced technologies and tools for mapping, diagnosing, cleaning, and securing underwater and coastal archaeological sites. A fleet of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) will be manufactured with the purpose of surveying the seabed and sensing the underwater environment by means of proper payload sensors (digital cameras, side scan and multi-beam sonars). This paper describes a set of underwater scene understanding procedures specifically tailored to the purposes addressed in the ARROWS frame. In particular the data collected by the AUVs during the acquisition campaigns will be processed to detect targets of interest located on the seabed. The main approach adopted in the object detection procedures is to highlight the amount of regularity in the captured data. This can be pursued by exploiting computer vision algorithms that perform i) the recognition of geometrical curves ii) the classification of seafloor areas by means of textural pattern analysis iii) a large scale map generation to return an overall view of the site and iv) a reliable object recognition process performing the integration of the available multi modal information. Moreover the collected raw data together with the analysis output results will be stored to allow for an offline deep analysis of the archaeological findings. This will represent a powerful tool to be used by expert users or by the general public to enjoy the underwater cultural heritage.
Underwater archeology missions design for data gathering automation
2008 16th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, 2008
In this paper, we propose a methodology for marine archeological survey, which aims at enhancing productivity and safety during on-field missions. A primary interest of the archaeological investigation is to extract, in a non invasive way, as much information as possible from a site with minimal expenditure of time and of expensive resources. In general, this is done by taking photos and measurements of objects and terrain, which are then used to construct representations of the site in form of maps. In the proposed approach, standard manual procedures for structuring the site and for gathering data of the above mentioned type have been redesigned in order to exploit beneficially the potential of cooperation between human operators and robotics devices, such as ROVs. In this way, augmented, informative maps of underwater archaeological sites can be constructed by associating, integrating and fusing data gathered by heterogeneous sensors. The analysis of data gathered employing the proposed methodology shows that satisfactory level of efficiency, efficacy and quality can be obtained and, what is more important, these advantages can be obtained without the use of extremely expensive equipments.
Design of a modular Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for archaeological investigations
OCEANS 2015 - Genova, 2015
FP7 European project. The ARROWS project challenge is to provide the underwater archaeologists with technological tools for cost affordable campaigns: i.e. ARROWS adapts and develops low cost AUV technologies to significantly reduce the cost of archaeological operations, covering the full extent of an archaeological campaign (underwater mapping, diagnosis and cleaning tasks). The tools and methodologies developed within ARROWS comply with the "Annex" of the 2001 UNESCO Convention for the protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH). The system effectiveness and MARTA performance will be demonstrated in two scenarios, different as regards the environment and the historical context, the Mediterranean Sea (Egadi Islands) and the Baltic Sea.