Huxley: A flexible robot control architecture for autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper presents “Huxley,” a production robot control architecture that was developed by Bluefin Robotics for its fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Huxley was designed with flexibility foremost in mind, allowing it to be easily adapted and reliably deployed on a wide range of platforms. The architecture follows a layered paradigm, providing a clean and logical abstraction for the major control functions. It also provides an interface for interaction with the layers, enabling expansion of the core capabilities of the architecture. This interface provides users the flexibility to develop smart payloads capable of utilizing available data, modifying the behavior of the AUV and even exploring new frontiers of autonomy.