Remote Monitoring and Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Oceanographic data gathering techniques are moving away from simple sensors completely under the control of the user, towards smart systems such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that are capable of operating without user intervention. However, artificial intelligence cannot yet match human intelligence, and the ability to remotely monitor and control these otherwise autonomous systems throughout the data collection process is highly desirable. Communications links to these underwater systems via acoustic modems and the Internet are becoming increasingly viable. This thesis investigates the problems arising from combining these developing technologies for oceanographic data-gathering purposes. Towards the goal of remotely monitoring and controlling an AUV during a mission, this thesis explores various methods of vehicle control, mission reconfiguration, data transmission, data robustness, interconnectivity with the Internet, and communication with and between multiple AUVs. We h..