Cooperation model design based on Object-oriented Petri Net for multiple heterogeneous UUVs system

Multiple heterogeneous UUVs system (MHVS) can perform the mission of exploring unknown undersea environment. A complex heterogeneous system is considered here. It is composed of three populations of UUV, having different but complementary abilities. In order to autonomously execute goal-oriented missions, cooperation model is needed to provide MHVS with a framework for interaction and coordination among heterogeneous UUVs. The modeling and analysis of large heterogeneous system is difficult due to the complexity of the state space. This paper proposes to model MHVS by the method of Object-oriented Petri Net (OPN). In this way, the complexity of cooperation model is reduced effectively. The functions and advantages of the cooperation model are analyzed in detail. The experiment results on the multiple UUV simulation platform show that the MHVS can cooperate effectively during the mission of searching multiple undersea targets with the proposed cooperation model.