High-level fuzzy logic guidance system for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) tasked to perform autonomous launch and recovery (ALR) of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)

There have been much technological advances and research in Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) as a support and delivery platform for Autonomous/Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (AUV/UUV) or Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV). Advantages include extending underwater search and survey operations time and reach, improving underwater positioning and mission awareness, in addition to minimizing the costs and risks associated with similar manned vessel operations. The objective of this paper is to present the design and development a high-level fuzzy logic guidance controller for a WAM-V 14 unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in order to autonomously launch and recover a REMUS 100 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The approach to meeting this objective is to develop ability for the USV to intercept and rendezvous with an AUV that is in transit in order to maximize the probability of a final mobile docking maneuver. Specifically, a fuzzy logic Rendezvous-Docking controller has been developed that generates Waypoint-Heading goals for the USV to minimize the cross-track errors between the USV and AUV. A subsequent fuzzy logic Waypoint-Heading controller has been developed to provide the desired heading and speed commands to the low-level controller given the Waypoint-Heading goals. High-level mission control has been extensively simulated using Matlab and partially characterized in real-time during testing. Detailed simulation, experimental results and findings will be reported in this paper.