A multi-platform guidance, navigation and control system for the autosub family of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Over the last decade, there has been a proliferation of marine robots such as Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs), Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and underwater gliders. The variety of vehicles’ capabilities and styles has led to numerous strategies to address the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) tasks. In particular, a recent trend in the advancements of GNC systems is to develop modular, multi-platform solutions. This paper illustrates the approach followed in the development of the GNC system for the different types of AUV of the Autosub family. The presented system is decomposed into several interconnected components, each implemented as a standalone software module. Each component is highly-reconfigurable and easily extensible, and the interactions between the modules rely on generic-purpose interfaces. Such a design enables the execution of a broad range of autonomous missions, as well as the integration and deployment of the system on marine platforms with very diverse characteristics, not limited to the vehicles of the Autosub class. Experimental results obtained in real-time during in water campaigns are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system and its versatility on a wide range of platforms and missions.