A control continuum for tetherless underwater vehicles

There exists a need for a new class of underwater vehicle that can perform both close control tasks as well as long- range exploration without manual reconfiguration. A tetherless underwater vehicle (TUV) with acoustic communications to an operator station has potential to fulfill this need. The problem with TUVs is the limited communications bandwidth and time lag increasing with range. This research presents a new class of controller for TUVs that isolates the operator from the time-varying lag. This isolation is accomplished through various means such as predictive control and automatic waypoint creation and tracking. A continuum of control is formed with these various paradigms and a smooth evolution through the continuum is formulated, based on the measured time delay.