Controlling an autonomous underwater vehicle through tunnels with a behavior-based control strategy

Sammanfattning: The objective of the master’s thesis work is to investigate how an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) should act in an underwater tunnel environment. The thesis proposes sensors, control strategies, mission statement, among others, required for tunnel assignments. A behavior-based control (BBC) strategy has been developed to control the AUV. The BBC is used in the middle level of the vehicle control, i.e. the reactive control system which describes how the AUV navigates through a tunnel, while other events are considered. The control strategy has also been separated into two parts, and these are: controlling the AUV’s heading and controlling the AUV to a desired distance from the tunnel wall. To be able to evaluate the performance of the system, a graphical user interface (GUI) has been developed. The GUI enables the operator to change control settings during simulations. Two proposed control strategies are presented with simulated results.