A New ROS-Based Operation Software for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle HOBALIN and Its Test in Real Sea

The software system for a hovering-type AUV named HOBALIN was replaced by newly developed system based on ROS, which is a widely-used robot software framework, and the AUV completed dives in the real sea almost successfully with the new software. An important objective of the software replacement was to make it easier to import new or experimental features, and some new features are also tested in the dives done in the real sea. Therefore, in this paper, the design of the new software and the results of the dives are reported.