Abstract
Spilled oil from stranded ship pollutes the ocean environment, and it also damages the regional economics. In order to prevent such damages from expanding, we are developing an autonomous buoy system. This paper is the second report on the development of this system. When the ship accident occurs, several buoys are dropped into the sea from a ship or a helicopter. These buoys are expected to inform us the meteorological and oceanographic data around it in real time. We envisage that the buoys will drift along with spilled oil for the most part. However, it may happen that the buoys are apart from spilled oil by accidents. To overcome this problem, the buoys must be capable of chasing spilled oil. In this research, we developed the algorithm to chase the given target point. In real situation, such target point means the center of an area of spilled oil detected by sensor. Then, we carried out some chasing control experiment using a new buoy model. The buoy went toward the given target point by controlling its buoyancy and two pairs of wing angles. Experimental results show that the buoy could chase the target point even if it is moving.
