CADDY · Cognitive autonomous diving buddy

Divers operate in harsh and poorly monitored environments in which the slightest unexpected disturbance, technical malfunction, or lack of attention can have catastrophic consequences. They manoeuvre in complex 3D environments, carry cumbersome equipment, while performing their mission. To overcome these problems, CADDY aims to establish an innovative set-up between a diver and companion autonomous robots (underwater and surface) that exhibit cognitive behaviour through learning, interpreting, and adapting to the diver's behaviour, physical state, and actions.The CADDY project replaces a human buddy diver with an autonomous underwater vehicle and adds a new autonomous surface vehicle to improve monitoring, assistance, and safety of the diver's mission. The resulting system plays a threefold role similar to those that a human buddy diver should have: i) the buddy observer" that continuously monitors the diver