Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Environment for Multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles*

摘要

The hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation environment for the development and testing of the multi-AUV real time coordinated control software is presented. The actual embedded control computers with data acquisition cards are introduced into the environment. The real-time simulation computers installed with multi-function data acquisition cards are developed to compose the closed loop control system in the lab with the corresponding control computers, simulating the dynamics of the vehicles, the dynamic models and interfaces of the navigation sensors and the fins and motor actuators. Through the LAN network, all simulation computers send the simulated states of all vehicles to the graphics workstation to visualize the AUVs motion in cooperation by the 3D scene technology using the VEGA software. To simulate the underwater acoustic communication delay property, the graphics workstation also serves as the acoustic communication relay. In detail, the graphics workstation receives the messages including the receiver ID from the vehicle control computers, and delay the propagation time according to the underwater sound speed and the slant distance between the sender and receiver vehicles. The multi-AUV HIL simulation results demonstrate that this system can help the researchers validate the coordinative control system of multi-AUV, test the performance, improve the reliability, and reduce the cost and risk of in-water experiments.