A verified hierarchical control architecture for co-ordinated multi-vehicle operations

Abstract

A layered control architecture for executing multi-vehicle team co-ordination algorithms is presented along with the specifications for team behaviour. The control architecture consists of three layers: team control, vehicle supervision and maneuver control. It is shown that the controller implementation is consistent with the system specification on the desired team behaviour. Computer simulations with accurate models of autonomous underwater vehicles illustrate the overall approach in the co-ordinated search for the minimum of a scalar field. The co-ordinated search is based on the simplex optimization algorithm.