Integrated Simulation for Rapid Development of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

The development and testing of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) hardware and software is greatly complicated by vehicle inaccessibility during operation. Integrated simulation remotely links vehicle components and support equipment with graphics simulation workstations, allowing complete real-time, pre-mission, pseudo-mission and post-mission visualization and analysis in the lab environment. Integrated simulator testing of AUV software and hardware is a broad and versatile method that supports rapid diagnosis and robust correction of system faults. Pre-mission simulator AUV testing permits experimental evaluation of developmental software. Pseudo-mission simulator testing of AUV processes employs an identical laboratory microprocessor or remote communication with a testbench-mounted operating AUV, permitting end-to-end testing of all software and hardware. Post-mission simulator playback of recorded telemetry, sensor data and system state transitions supports in-depth reenactment, playback and analysis of in-water operational results. High-resolution three-dimensional graphics workstations can provide real-time representations of vehicle dynamics, control system behavior, mission execution, sonar processing and object classification. Use of well-defined, user-readable mission log files as the data transfer mechanism allows consistent and repeatable simulation of all AUV operations. Examples of integrated simulation are provided using the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) AUV, an eight foot, 387-pound untethered robot submarine designed for research in adaptive control, mission planning, mission execution, and post-mission data analysis. The flexibility, connectivity and versatility provided by this approach enables sophisticated visualization and analysis of all aspects of AUV development. Integrated simulator networking is recommended as a fundamental requirement for comprehensive and rapid AUV research and development.