{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,3]],"date-time":"2026-03-03T20:27:50Z","timestamp":1772569670644,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"24","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,17]],"date-time":"2020-12-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1608163200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010661","name":"Horizon 2020","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["690008"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["690008"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010661","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In this work, we present the design, implementation, and testing of a guidance system for the UX-1 robot, a novel spherical underwater vehicle designed to explore and map flooded underground mines. For this purpose, it needs to navigate completely autonomously, as no communications are possible, in the 3D networks of tunnels of semistructured but unknown environments and gather various geoscientific data. First, the overall design concepts of the robot are presented. Then, the guidance system and its subsystems are explained. Finally, the system\u2019s validation and integration with the rest of the UX-1 robot systems are presented. A series of experimental tests following the software-in-the-loop and the hardware-in-the-loop paradigms have been carried out, designed to simulate as closely as possible navigation in mine tunnel environments. The results obtained in these tests demonstrate the effectiveness of the guidance system and its proper integration with the rest of the systems of the robot, and validate the abilities of the UX-1 platform to perform complex missions in flooded mine environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s20247237","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,17]],"date-time":"2020-12-17T10:42:47Z","timestamp":1608201767000},"page":"7237","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Guidance for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles in Confined Semistructured Environments"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8701-5701","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zorana","family":"Milosevic","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM-CSIC, Universidad Polit\u00e9cnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4102-5899","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ramon A. Suarez","family":"Fernandez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM-CSIC, Universidad Polit\u00e9cnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9498-5407","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sergio","family":"Dominguez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM-CSIC, Universidad Polit\u00e9cnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8740-2453","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Claudio","family":"Rossi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre for Automation and Robotics UPM-CSIC, Universidad Polit\u00e9cnica de Madrid, 28006 Madrid, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"(2020, November 19). EU Imports And Exports Of Raw Materials Up in 2018. Available online: https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/web\/products-eurostat-news\/-\/DDN-20190415-1."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"(2020, November 06). Inventory of Flooded Mines, Deliverable D5.4, UNEXMIN Project. Available online: www.unexmin.eu."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Didier, C., van der Merwe, N., Betournay, M., Mainz, M., Aydan, O., Song, W.K., Kotyrba, A., and Josien, J. (2009, January 19\u201322). Presentation of the ISRM mine closure state of the art report. Proceedings of the ISRM-Sponsored International Symposium on Rock Mechanics: \u201cRock Characterisation, Modelling and Engineering Design Methods\u201d (SINOROCK 2009), Hong Kong, China."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"36","DOI":"10.4031\/002533201788001901","article-title":"Scientific Cave Diving","volume":"35","author":"Iliffe","year":"2001","journal-title":"Mar. Technol. Soc. J."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chaudhary, M., and Conrad, J.M. (2019). A Survey on the Implementation of Wireless Sensor Network Breadcrumb Trails for Sensing and Localization, 2019 SoutheastCon.","DOI":"10.1109\/SoutheastCon42311.2019.9020511"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lai, T.T.T., Chen, W.J., Li, K.H., Huang, P., and Chu, H.H. (2012, January 16\u201320). TriopusNet: Automating wireless sensor network deployment and replacement in pipeline monitoring. Proceedings of the 2012 ACM\/IEEE 11th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), Beijing, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/IPSN.2012.6920951"},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"Milosevic, Z., Fernandez, R.A.S., Dominguez, S., and Rossi, C. (2019, January 15\u201319). Guidance and Navigation Software for Autonomous Underwater Explorer of Flooded Mines. Proceedings of the IMWA 2019 Conference\u2014Mine Water: Technological and Ecological Challenges, Perm, Russia."},{"key":"ref_8","unstructured":"Senke, W. (2013, January 18). Applications of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in ocean mining exploration. Proceedings of the 2013 OCEANS, San Diego, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"Bergh \u00c5nonsen, K., Hagen, O.K., and Berglund, E. (2017, January 18\u201321). Autonomous mapping with AUVs using relative terrain navigation. Proceedings of the OCEANS 2017, Anchorage, AK, USA."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1002\/rob.20164","article-title":"A Self-Consistent Bathymetric Mapping Algorithm","volume":"24","author":"Roman","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Field Robotics"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2225","DOI":"10.1016\/S0278-4343(02)00070-5","article-title":"The application of autonomous underwater vehicles for interdisciplinary measurements in Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays","volume":"22","author":"Yu","year":"2002","journal-title":"Cont. Shelf Res."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"35","DOI":"10.1038\/35003648","article-title":"Oceanography\u2014Fish do not avoid survey vessels","volume":"404","author":"Fernandes","year":"2000","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_13","first-page":"1881","article-title":"\u2018Real-Time\u2019 Oceanography Adapts to Sea Changes","volume":"275","author":"Nadis","year":"1997","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Real-Arce, D.A., Barrera, C., Hern\u00e1ndez, J., and Llin\u00e1s, O. (2015, January 18\u201321). Ocean surface vehicles for maritime security applications (The PERSEUS project). Proceedings of the OCEANS 2015, Genova, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/OCEANS-Genova.2015.7271504"},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Mindell, D., and Bingham, B. (2001, January 5\u20138). New archaeological uses of autonomous underwater vehicles. Proceedings of the MTS\/IEEE Oceans 2001. An Ocean Odyssey. Conference Proceedings (IEEE Cat. No.01CH37295), Honolulu, HI, USA."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"702","DOI":"10.1002\/rob.20350","article-title":"Robotic Tools for Deep Water Archaeology: Surveying an Ancient Shipwreck with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle","volume":"27","author":"Bingham","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. Field Robot."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Venkatesan, S. (2016, January 6\u20139). AUV for Search Rescue at sea\u2014An innovative approach. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE\/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), Tokyo, Japan.","DOI":"10.1109\/AUV.2016.7778711"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"697","DOI":"10.3389\/fmars.2020.00697","article-title":"Future Vision for Autonomous Ocean Observations","volume":"7","author":"Whitt","year":"2020","journal-title":"Front. Mar. Sci."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Su, X., Ullah, I., Liu, X., and Choi, D. (2020). A Review of Underwater Localization Techniques, Algorithms, and Challenges. J. Sensors, 2020.","DOI":"10.1155\/2020\/6403161"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Goldberg, D. (2011, January 6\u20139). Huxley: A flexible robot control architecture for autonomous underwater vehicles. Proceedings of the OCEANS 2011 IEEE\u2014Spain, Santander, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/Oceans-Spain.2011.6003512"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"525","DOI":"10.1080\/1064119X.2018.1453567","article-title":"Autonomous underwater vehicles\u2014challenging developments and technological maturity towards strategic swarm robotics systems","volume":"37","author":"Vedachalam","year":"2019","journal-title":"Mar. Georesour. Geotechnol."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yoerger, D.R., Curran, M., Fujii, J., German, C.R., Gomez-Ibanez, D., Govindarajan, A.F., Howland, J.C., Llopiz, J.K., Wiebe, P.H., and Hobson, B.W. (2018, January 6\u20139). Mesobot: An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Tracking and Sampling Midwater Targets. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE\/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Workshop (AUV), Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/AUV.2018.8729822"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Soylu, S., Hampton, P., Crees, T., Woodroffe, A., and Jackson, E. (2018, January 6\u20139). Sonar-Based SLAM Navigation in Flooded Confined Spaces with the IMOTUS-1 Hovering AUV. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE\/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Workshop (AUV), Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/AUV.2018.8729738"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Vaganay, J., Elkins, M., Esposito, D., O\u2019Halloran, W., Hover, F., and Kokko, M. (2006, January 18\u201322). Ship Hull Inspection with the HAUV: US Navy and NATO Demonstrations Results. Proceedings of the OCEANS 2006, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.","DOI":"10.1109\/OCEANS.2006.307039"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"994","DOI":"10.1002\/rob.21640","article-title":"Toward Autonomous Exploration in Confined Underwater Environments","volume":"33","author":"Mallios","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Field Robot."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1122","DOI":"10.1002\/rob.21806","article-title":"Underwater confined space mapping by resource-constrained autonomous vehicle","volume":"35","author":"Preston","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Field Robot."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Richmond, K., Flesher, C., Lindzey, L., Tanner, N., and Stone, W.C. (2018, January 22). SUNFISH\u00ae: A human-portable exploration AUV for complex 3D environments. Proceedings of the OCEANS 2018 MTS\/IEEE Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/OCEANS.2018.8604899"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"03","DOI":"10.1002\/rob.20165","article-title":"Real-Time SLAM with Octree Evidence Grids for Exploration in Underwater Tunnels","volume":"24","author":"Fairfield","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Field Robotics"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kaiser, C.L., Yoerger, D.R., Kinsey, J.C., Kelley, S., Billings, A., Fujii, J., Suman, S., Jakuba, M., Berkowitz, Z., and German, C.R. (2016, January 6\u20139). The design and 200 day per year operation of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Sentry. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE\/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), Tokyo, Japan.","DOI":"10.1109\/AUV.2016.7778680"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Xing, H., Guo, S., Shi, L., Hou, X., Liu, Y., Liu, H., Hu, Y., Xia, D., and Li, Z. (2019, January 4\u20138). A Novel Small-scale Turtle-inspired Amphibious Spherical Robot. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Macau, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS40897.2019.8968304"},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9745","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2888617","article-title":"Path Planning Technologies for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles\u2014A Review","volume":"7","author":"Li","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Konolige, K., Marder-Eppstein, E., and Marthi, B. (2011, January 9\u201313). Navigation in hybrid metric-topological maps. Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICRA.2011.5980074"},{"key":"ref_33","unstructured":"Wang, C., Zhu, D., Li, T., Meng, M.Q., and de Silva, C.W. (2018). SRM: An Efficient Framework for Autonomous Robotic Exploration in Indoor Environments. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"893","DOI":"10.1109\/JOE.2015.2503498","article-title":"Mission and Motion Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Operating in Spatially and Temporally Complex Environments","volume":"41","author":"McMahon","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE J. Ocean. Eng."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hern\u00e1ndez, J.D., Isteni\u010d, K., Gracias, N., Palomeras, N., Campos, R., Vidal, E., Garc\u00eda, R., and Carreras, M. (2016). Autonomous Underwater Navigation and Optical Mapping in Unknown Natural Environments. Sensors, 16.","DOI":"10.3390\/s16081174"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Villa, J., Heininen, A., Zavari, S., Salomaa, T., Usenius, O., Laitinen, J., Aaltonen, J., and Koskinen, K.T. (2018, January 1\u20135). Mechanical subsystems integration and structural analysis for the autonomous underwater explorer. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2018.8593393"},{"key":"ref_37","unstructured":"Salomaa, T. (2017). Depth Control System on an Autonomous Miniature Robotic Submarine. [Master\u2019s Thesis, Tampere University of Technology]."},{"key":"ref_38","unstructured":"(2020, November 20). ROS Kinetic Kame. Available online: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/kinetic."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Martins, A., Almeida, J., Almeida, C., Dias, A., Dias, N., Aaltonen, J., Heininen, A., Koskinen, K.T., Rossi, C., and Dominguez, S. (2018, January 1\u20135). UX 1 system design - A robotic system for underwater mining exploration. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2018.8593999"},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Martins, A., Almeida, J., Almeida, C., and Silva, E. (2018, January 6\u20139). UXNEXMIN AUV Perception System Design and Characterization. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE\/OES Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Workshop (AUV), Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/AUV.2018.8729829"},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fossen, T.I. (2011). Front Matter. Handbook of Marine Craft Hydrodynamics and Motion Control, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.","DOI":"10.1002\/9781119994138"},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"39432","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2907193","article-title":"Modeling and Control of Underwater Mine Explorer Robot UX-1","volume":"7","author":"Grande","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fernandez, R.A.S., Parra, E.A., Milosevic, Z., Dominguez, S., and Rossi, C. (2018, January 1\u20135). Design, Modeling and Control of a Spherical Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Mine Exploration. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2018.8594016"},{"key":"ref_44","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"99782","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2930544","article-title":"Motion Control of Underwater Mine Explorer Robot UX-1: Field Trials","volume":"7","author":"Fernandez","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_45","unstructured":"Yamauchi, B. (1997, January 10\u201311). A Frontier-Based Approach For Autonomous Exploration. Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation CIRA\u201997. \u2018Towards New Computational Principles for Robotics and Automation\u2019, Monterey, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_46","unstructured":"(2020, November 06). Frontier Exploration. Available online: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/frontier_exploration."},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Mishra, S., and Bande, P. (December, January 30). Maze Solving Algorithms for Micro Mouse. Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Signal Image Technology and Internet Based Systems, Bali, Indonesia.","DOI":"10.1109\/SITIS.2008.104"},{"key":"ref_48","unstructured":"Verma, V., Estlin, T., Jonsson, A., Pasareanu, C., Simmons, R., and Tso, K. (2005, January 5\u20138). Plan execution interchange language (PLEXIL) for executable plans and command sequences. Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Artifical Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space\u2014iSAIRAS, Munich, Germany."},{"key":"ref_49","unstructured":"(2020, November 06). actionlib. Available online: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/actionlib\/DetailedDescription."},{"key":"ref_50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Silva, M.F., Lu\u00eds Lima, J., Reis, L.P., Sanfeliu, A., and Tardioli, D. (2020). Meta-Control and Self-Awareness for the UX-1 Autonomous Underwater Robot, Proceedings of the Robot 2019: Fourth Iberian Robotics Conference, Springer International Publishing.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-35990-4_55"},{"key":"ref_51","unstructured":"Sucan, I., and Chitta, S. (2020, November 06). \u201cMoveit\u201d [Online]. Available online: http:\/\/moveit.ros.org."},{"key":"ref_52","unstructured":"Coleman, D., Sucan, I.A., Chitta, S., and Correll, N. (2014). Reducing the Barrier to Entry of Complex Robotic Software: A MoveIt! Case Study. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_53","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"72","DOI":"10.1109\/MRA.2012.2205651","article-title":"The Open Motion Planning Library","volume":"19","author":"Moll","year":"2012","journal-title":"IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag."},{"key":"ref_54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pan, J., Chitta, S., and Manocha, D. (2012, January 14\u201318). FCL: A general purpose library for collision and proximity queries. Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Saint Paul, MI, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICRA.2012.6225337"},{"key":"ref_55","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"189","DOI":"10.1007\/s10514-012-9321-0","article-title":"OctoMap: An Efficient Probabilistic 3D Mapping Framework Based on Octrees","volume":"34","author":"Hornung","year":"2013","journal-title":"Auton. Robot."},{"key":"ref_56","unstructured":"Kuffner, J.J., and LaValle, S.M. (2000, January 24\u201328). RRT-connect: An efficient approach to single-query path planning. Proceedings of the 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065), San Francisco, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_57","unstructured":"Lavalle, S.M. (1998). Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees: A New Tool for Path Planning, Iowa State University. Technical Report."},{"key":"ref_58","unstructured":"Koenig, N., and Howard, A. (October, January 28). Design and use paradigms for Gazebo, an open-source multi-robot simulator. Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37566)."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/20\/24\/7237\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T10:46:27Z","timestamp":1760179587000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/20\/24\/7237"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,17]]},"references-count":58,"journal-issue":{"issue":"24","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12]]}},"alternative-id":["s20247237"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s20247237","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,17]]}}}