Navigation and Control of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Using a Distributed, Networked, Control Architecture
The Ocean Technology Division of Southampton Oceanography Centre has designed, built and recently successfully field-tested the AUTOSUB-1 autonomous underwater vehicle. This paper describes the development, design, and testing of the navigation and control systems.
The system is based upon a modular, distributed, architecture, with fourteen network nodes carrying out the essential vehicle navigation, control, monitor and safety functions. The paper will show how the use of this architecture has contributed to the speed of system implementation, test and integration, and will simplify the integration of future system enhancements.
The navigation system uses the global positioning system (GPS) or differential GPS (DGPS) position fixes when surfaced, and dead-reckons when submerged, using a Doppler velocity log. Separate nodes control the vehicle depth, position and speed. The mission control node is an event-driven command interpreter which co-ordinates activities and issues demands to the control nodes via the network.
The system is based upon a modular, distributed, architecture, with fourteen network nodes carrying out the essential vehicle navigation, control, monitor and safety functions. The paper will show how the use of this architecture has contributed to the speed of system implementation, test and integration, and will simplify the integration of future system enhancements.
The navigation system uses the global positioning system (GPS) or differential GPS (DGPS) position fixes when surfaced, and dead-reckons when submerged, using a Doppler velocity log. Separate nodes control the vehicle depth, position and speed. The mission control node is an event-driven command interpreter which co-ordinates activities and issues demands to the control nodes via the network.
Document Type: Miscellaneous
Publication date: 01 January 1998
- Underwater Technology is the peer-reviewed international journal of the Society for Underwater Technology. The objectives of the journal are to inform and acquaint the Society's members and other readers with current views and new developments in the broad areas of underwater technology, ocean science and offshore engineering.
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