Advances in unmanned underwater vehicles technologies: Modeling, control and guidance perspectives

Recent decades have witnessed increased interest in the design, development and testing of unmanned underwater vehicles for various civil and military missions. A great array of vehicle types and applications has been produced along with a wide range of innovative approaches for enhancing the performance of UUVs. Key technology advances in the relevant area include battery technology, fuel cells, underwater communication, propulsion systems and sensor fusion. These recent advances enable the extension of UUVs’ flight envelope comparable to that of manned vehicles. For undertaking longer missions, therefore more advanced control and navigation will be required to maintain an accurate position over larger operational envelope particularly when a close proximity to obstacles (such as manned vehicles, pipelines, underwater structures) is involved. In this case, a sufficiently good model is prerequisite of control system design. The paper is focused on discussion on advances of UUVs from the modeling, control and guidance perspectives. Lessons learned from recent achievements as well as future directions are highlighted.