Plant Modeling and Estimation Framework for a Plume-Generating Controlled Underwater Vehicle

The use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for the real-time estimation of a plume generated by an underwater stationary or moving source finds important applications. A mathematical estimation framework is presented that includes the process-state (plume) model described by the 3D advection-diffusion partial differential equation and the exosystem (moving source) with a 6 DOF dynamical model and a guidance scheme. The process-state model is discretized using a non-overlapping domain decomposition finite volume method with Runge-Kutta integration. The source is following a physics-based prescribed trajectory with a PID controller. Numerical results show grid sensitivity analysis for the process-state under realistic underwater tidal currents and diffusivities. Plant data are shown for a typical case of a moving source in a large simulation domain and realistic ambient conditions.