Design and evaluation of a hierarchical control architecture for an autonomous underwater vehicle

This paper researches on a kind of control architecture for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). After describing the hybrid property of the AUV control system, we present the hierarchical AUV control architecture. The architecture is organized in three layers: mission layer, task layer and execution layer. State supervisor and task coordinator are two key modules handling discrete events, so we describe these two modules in detail. Finally, we carried out a series of tests to verify this architecture. The test results show that the AUV can perform autonomous missions effectively and safely. We can conclude the control architecture is valid and practical.