Supervisory control of an autonomous underwater vehicle using an acoustic communication link

Abstract

In this thesis, I designed and tested a supervisory control scheme for the Odyssey II-class Autonomous Underwater Vehicles that relies on a very-low-data-rate acoustic communication link. A human supervisor communicates with the AUV over a combination radio/acoustic network. The supervisor radios commands from shore to data repeater nodes moored at strategic locations on the ocean surface. Utility Acoustic Modems mounted on the moorings rebroadcast the binary data into the sea in the 12-17 kHz frequency band. The moving AUV detects the transmission, decodes the message, and carries out the command contained within. The operator's commands are implemented in the context of a behavior-based layered control software architecture. The supervisory control scheme was tested and verified during the Synaptic Internal Tide Experiment, which took place in Monterey Bay during August and September, 1999.