A hierarchical real-time control architecture for a semi-autonomous underwater vehicle

This paper describes a real-time control architecture for Dual Use Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (DUSAUV), which has been developed at Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO) for being a test-bed of development of underwater navigation and manipulator technologies. DUSAUV has three built-in computers, seven thrusters for six DOF motion control, one 4-function electric manipulator, one ballasting motor, built-in power source, and various sensors. A supervisor control system with GUI and a multi-purpose joystick is mounted on the surface vessel and communicates with vehicle through a fiber optic link. Furthermore, QNX, one of real-time operating system, is ported on the built-in control and navigation computers for real-time control purpose, while Microsoft OS product is ported in the supervisor computer for GUI programming convenience. A hierarchical control architecture, which consists of application layer, real-time layer and physical layer, has been developed for efficient control system of above complex underwater robotic system. The experimental results with implementation of the layered control architecture for various motion control of DUSAUV in an ocean engineering basin of KRISO is also presented.