Coordinated maneuver for gradient search using multiple AUVs

The coordinated use of multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles can provide important advantages for oceanographic missions. One important mission application scenario can be the search of underwater plumes such as sources of freshwater of hydrothermal vents. These plumes characterize the environment by creating a gradient field of some measurable physical quantity. An innovative integrated acoustic navigation system and coordination control maneuver for a formation of 3 AUVs and 1 surface craft to gradient search and following missions is proposed. The specific formation geometry and topology takes in account the navigation and coordination requirements. It was designed to achieve an efficient, low cost and technically feasible solution. The system can operate in 3 modes depending on formation distances. Varying pinging rates and offsets are used to communicate parameters and mode changing. No additional underwater communication systems neither acoustic transponder deployment are needed for the vehicle coordination. This way a high degree of energy efficiency and overall mission low cost and simpler logistics is achieved. The hybrid nature of the coordinating maneuver allows the formation gradient survey and following with the efficient exploitation of the environment structuring by the phenomena to be studied. The individual control laws were designed in order to minimize the inter-vehicle communication. The coordination factors are the knowledge by the vehicles of each other behavior (since all vehicles execute the same control laws) and the detection of formation distortions. These distortions are detected by the relative navigation system. The proposed approach allows the low cost implementation of a multiple AUV coordinating control for a large range of oceanographic missions.