A Hierarchical Control Framework for Autonomous Subsea Pipeline Leak Localization With a Crewed Submersible Vehicle

초록

The crewed submersible vehicle (CSV) is a critical tool for combating submarine oil pipeline leaks. This article adopts the core idea of a goal-oriented control system (GOCS). We propose a dual control for exploration and exploitation (DCEE) framework. The DCEE guides the submersible to autonomously collect rich measurement data, enabling accurate and efficient source-term estimation. For the first time, we developed a plume model adapted to submarine pollutant dispersion to guide the CSV equipped with the DCEE framework for source pinpointing. Under uncertainty of leakage parameters, a search strategy is designed to maximize the information obtained to detect leak sources. Furthermore, we employ a disturbance observer-based control (DOBC) algorithm in the low-level control to compensate for external disturbances. It ensures stable path tracking and yields a closed-loop autonomous search system for underwater operations. The simulation results show that our method can guide CSV to the leak source in complex and unknown submarine environments, which realizes rapid and accurate localization.

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