摘要: The authors investigated approaches for designing the control and communication structure for fleets of autonomous underwater vehicles. They developed human-operated surface ships to provide an inexpensive method for testing these... 展开 The authors investigated approaches for designing the control and communication structure for fleets of autonomous underwater vehicles. They developed human-operated surface ships to provide an inexpensive method for testing these algorithms for possible use on fleets of multiple vehicles. The testing was performed at the NSWCCD ARD in Bayview, Idaho; it demonstrated a formation control algorithm that minimizes the communication needed to maintain formation. The system is a variation of a leader-follower formation where the leader periodically broadcasts its position to all the vehicles. This formation was shown to be robust and tolerant to loss of communication or the loss of any vehicle including the leader in computer simulations with a program developed at NAVSEA CSS called ALWSE-MC. The simulations show that the algorithm can be expanded to control a large number of vehicles. Preliminary measurements and analysis of the performance of a two-hydrophone sensor were performed. This sensor can be used to provide an update of the leader's location every time the leader pings for navigation or communicates in any way. 收起