A tentative study of high-level reactive mission programming: Application to the VORTEX underwater vehicle

This paper deals with the enhancement of the capabilities and autonomy of robotic systems such as underwater vehicles. This requires not only a better understanding of the control laws but also of the controller architecture which enables automatic and reliable decision making of the controlled vehicle. At the mission level, high-level reactive mission programming must be provided. The tentative study presented proposes to merge in the control structure, the reactive and predictive aspects in a complementary way. The stress is put on the description of the predictive process and the advantages it induces. The study of an example of the mission carried out by the VORTFEX vehicle provides clues about the suitability of the approach