Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulation Platform for the Design, Testing and Validation of Autonomous Control System for Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

Significant advances in various relevant science and engineering disciplines have propelled the development of more advanced, yet reliable and practical underwater vehicles. A great array of vehicle types and applications has been produced along with a wide range of innovative approaches for enhancing the performance of unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). 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. System evaluation and testing of unmanned underwater vehicles in certain environment can be tedious, time consuming and expensive. This paper, focused on developing dynamic model of UUV for the purpose of guidance and control. Along with this a HILS (Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulation) based novel framework for rapid construction of testing scenarios with embedded systems has been investigated. The modeling approach is implemented for the AUV Squid, an autonomous underwater vehicle that was designed, developed and tested by research team at Center for Unmanned System Studies at Institut Teknologi Bandung.