The Contribution of Scripted Command Sequences and Low Level Control Behaviours to Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Control Systems and Their Impact on Reliability and Mission Success

The increasing complexity of AUV operations, the increasingly hostile environments in which AUV's work as well as the increased range and operational duration of modern vehicles has placed an emphasis on the need for reliable and robust mission planning. This paper explores the state of the art with current oceanographic survey operations and explores the means by which increased reliability may be achieved by enhancing aspects of the mission requirements capture, specification and run-time execution of a mission.