Autonomous control of an autonomous underwater vehicle towing a vector sensor array

This paper is about the autonomous control of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), and the particular considerations required to allow proper control while towing a 100-meter vector sensor array. Mission related objectives are tempered by the need to consider the effect of a sequence of maneuvers on the motion of the towed array which is thought not to tolerate sharp bends or twists in sensitive material. We describe and motivate an architecture for autonomy structured on the behavior-based control model augmented with a novel approach for performing behavior coordination using multi-objective optimization. We provide detailed in-field experimental results from recent exercises with two 21-inch AUVs in Monterey Bay California.