Optimal Sensor Setup for USV Autonomy in Obstacle Navigation

Maritime Robotics
1

Hello everyone,

My team and I are developing an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) for a university competition. Our USV is a catamaran equipped with a Jetson Nano for processing. The total budget for our vehicle, including all components, is $1900.

Competition Task

The goal of the competition is to autonomously navigate through a parkour with various obstacles. The USV must:

  • Detect and classify obstacles,
  • Plan a route around them,
  • Complete the parkour as quickly as possible.

I have attached a file with the parkour details for better context.

parkour
parkour1730×647 108 KB

Sensor Setup Options

We are evaluating different sensor configurations and would like to hear your opinions on their feasibility and efficiency:

  1. Monocular vision + LIDAR
  2. Monocular vision + AI-based depth estimation + LIDAR
  3. Stereo vision
  4. Stereo vision + LIDAR

Our primary concerns are accuracy and cost-effectiveness. We plan to develop accuracy enhancement, prediction, and verification algorithms to improve sensor performance. However, I have no prior experience with LIDAR, so I am unsure about its real-world accuracy in a marine environment.

Given our budget, processing limitations (Jetson Nano), and the need for fast and reliable obstacle detection, which sensor setup would you recommend? Any insights from your experience would be greatly appreciated!

Looking forward to your responses.

Best regards.

3 Likes
2

Hi,

Due to limitations about budget I consider that one option it is use a depth camera like OAK-D Lite (OAK-D Lite – Luxonis)

This camera works using just image, it does not have depth sensor. Maybe it could be a problem with detection in outdoor enviroments (If anyone works with this kind of camera, correct me)

Also it is possible to use another configuration validated by outdoor projects. Above water using vision, the problem could be the refleciton and shine.

Regards!

JuanS.

3

I forget to share the link with a minimal ROS interface for the camera:

HTH