A portable simulation facility for the design of autonomous underwater vehicles

The development process of an autonomous undersea vehicle typically requires evaluation of the stability and controllability of a large number of candidate which configurations in order to arrive at some 'optimal' design. The 3D animated simulation presented in this paper provides a computer-based tool with which initial screenings of candidate vehicle configurations can be performed. The 3D animation features an animated AUV and an instrumentation panel. The graphics application is written with Open Inventor, a C++ graphics library developed by Silicon Graphics and based on OpenGL. The entire package was initially developed on a Silicon Graphics Indy workstation and then ported to a PC running Windows NT and equipped with a OpenGL compatible graphics card. The paper discusses the frame rates obtained with with system.