Realtime Simulation And 3D-Visualisation Of Surface And Underwater Vehicles For Monitoring And Evaluating Autonomous Missions

Abstract

The use of autonomous underwater vehicles requires stable and reliable algorithms within the control software. A misdirected vehicle can quickly lead to a costly damage or even loss of the vehicle. In this paper, an application is presented that allows an ongoing underwater mission to be tracked in real-time within a 3D simulation and, in the event of a problem, aborts it to set the vehicles into a safe state. It can communicate directionally with the control software of each vehicle, thus providing the basis of a simulation environment. Furthermore, first implementations for evaluating the control algorithms of autonomous vehicles within the simulation environment will be presented.