Discrete hierarchical supervisory control for autonomous underwater vehicle

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is an unmanned untethered underwater vehicle managed by its control architecture. If we want an AUV to undertake a user-specified mission without the presence of a human, the control system should have enough machine intelligence. The present paper, based on the RW supervisory control theory of Discrete Event Dynamic Systems (DEDS) developed by Ramadge and Wonham, presents discrete hierarchical supervisory control for the intelligent level of AUV control architecture. The DEDS formalism models of AUVs are given in detail. Then the controllability and observability are outlined. The simulation results on the semi-physical virtual reality system shows that the control cannot only coordinate properly sensing, planning and motion but also make the vehicle to adapt to some relatively complex unknown ocean environment.