Nested Distributed Autonomy Architecture for Undersea Sensor Networks

Underwater surveillance is experiencing a paradigm shift from platform-centric to distributed networks of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). In order to achieve the performance goals with smaller apertures carried by single platforms, new concepts of operations must be developed, which exploit platform mobility to adapt to the changing environmental conditions. Unlike the network of sensor nodes used in air/land, underwater networks cannot rely on the low channel capacity of the acoustic communication available. The operation of such an underwater sensor network requires a much higher level of autonomous, distributed command and control architecture. This paper discusses the proposed nested autonomy architecture developed at MIT for command and control of AUVs.