Cooperative-adaptive algorithms for targets localization in underwater environment

Underwater target localization using several AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) is a difficult issue. A systematic and exhaustive coverage strategy is not efficient in term of exploration time: it can be improved by making the AUVs share their information and cooperate to optimize their motions, dealing with the environmental changes and reducing the amount of redundant data. The contribution of this paper is the definition of such a strategy that adapts each vehicle motions according to its or others´ sensory information. Communication points are required to make underwater vehicles exchange information: for that purpose the system involves one ASV (Autonomous Surface Vehicle), that helps the AUVs re-localize and exchange data, and two AUVs that adapt their strategy according to gathered information, while satisfying the associated communication constraints. In order to test our algorithms we extend an existing architecture to account for the information gathered and exchanged by the AUVs.