Modeling and Simulation of an AUV Simulator With Guidance System

An intelligent autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) simulator with path-planning capability was developed. A guidance system of the simulator automatically generates continuous-curvature paths of a cubic B-spline class constrained by the minimum turning radius of the marine vehicle and waypoints. The simulator of the guidance system includes a line-of-sight (LOS) algorithm and a horizontal proportional–derivative (PD) controller, adapting the Euler–Rodriguez quaternion method on the base of 3-D Euler–Lagrange formulation. A web-based interactive simulation system can animate the attitudes and position of the AUV in real time. A 3000-T AUV was used to test the guidance system. Comparisons of linear and cubic path-planning strategies were discussed, including a straight line and a conventional cubic spline method, three parametric methods for planning cubic B-spline paths, and an iterative method for improving and expanding the function of the path generator. Simulation results of the tracking performance tests show that the AUV can precisely approach targets and waypoints using the proposed method. The improvement in the cross-tracking error was approximately 80%, whereas reduction in traveling time was 5%.