Web enabling ocean vehicles under intermittent communications

We often take Web connectivity for granted. This can be the case in our houses where we rely on more and more devices that connect to the Internet and exchange information with remote servers or other nearby devices around using cheap Wi-Fi radios. However, the world remains for the most part disconnected. There are still uncountable remote areas where connecting to the Internet is still a big challenge such as underwater. This paper presents a communications architecture and implementation for web monitoring and control of networks of autonomous vehicles deployed in remote areas such as the open sea. In such environments, communication links are heterogeneous, intermittent, opportunistic and most times unavailable. To cope with these environments, we have developed a robust communications system capable of storing and forwarding information to the web as well as accepting new commands from web-based interfaces. The implementation of this system is open source, part of the LSTS toolchain, and was tested for monitoring/controlling Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) through the web.