The Dynamic Compact Control Language: A compact marshalling scheme for acoustic communications

Abstract

The Dynamic Compact Control Language (DCCL) extends the ubiquitous Extensible Markup Language (XML) to provide a structure for defining very short messages comprised of bounded basic variable types, suitable for transmission over a low throughput acoustic channel. Algorithms are provided to consistently encode and decode the fields of these messages, and an implementation of DCCL with encryption is provided as a open source C++ library. Furthermore, DCCL has been incorporated into a publish/subscribe robotic autonomy architecture and used on numerous simulations and field trials involving heterogeneous networks of vehicles; we present the results of several. The ease of reconfiguration and error checking provided by DCCL make it well suited for collaborative autonomous underwater vehicle operations, where the flexibility to quickly change the message set, combined with low incidence of error, is necessary for success.