Control Automation of Maritime Unmanned Complex with a Group of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

It is expedient to perform underwater search operations on large water areas using a group of autonomous self-propelled underwater vehicles. However, with a large distance to the search areas, the sea transition (from one point to the other) of the underwater vehicles requires high energy costs. This leads to the necessity to use heavy-duty underwater vehicles, which determines the high cost of the search operation. The transport of underwater vehicles is proposed to be carried out with an unmanned surface vessel, equipped with actuators for the automatic release of a group of vehicles under water and receiving on board after the end of the underwater mission. The maritime unmanned complex consisting of an unmanned surface vessel and a group of autonomous underwater vehicles on its board forms a new type of marine robotics, the complete automation of which is an actual scientific and technical task. For its implementation, the underlying (basic) automation technology of the marine search underwater mission has been developed as the theoretical basis for the development of the generalized structure of the complex automatic control system. Ten implementation stages of the underlying technology are formulated and the analysis of their automation features with the use of modern methods in the field of marine robotics is performed. Automation of the underlying technology stages involves the transfer of the vessel to a given water area, the automatic release (launch) of the group of underwater vehicles and their coordinated motion to the search area, the search operations and the return to the unmanned surface vessel, as well as the recovery of the vessel to the base. The generalized requirements for automatic control systems constituting the maritime unmanned complex at each stage of its functioning are provided. The spiral trajectory of waiting for the motion of the underwater vehicles at the group formation stages, for the search operation execution and after its completion, is proposed. For the spatial motion of the autonomous underwater vehicle as an agent of the group, the automatic control system was improved by introducing the blocks of the “Navigation Situation Model” and the “Navigation Threat Identifier, which make it impossible for emergency collision with the neighboring underwater vehicles of the group and disintegrate the group due to the data communication loss between them