Real-time control architecture for SAUVIM

This paper provides an overview of hardware and software architecture of SAUVIM (Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions) which has been developed at the Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL). Unlike other autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), SAUVIM is equipped with an electric motor-driven dexterous robotic manipulator for underwater tasks requiring physical contacts with underwater objects. The overall vehicle-manipulator system becomes a high degrees-of freedom multi-body nonlinear dynamic system. To effectively control this complex robotic system, distributed real-time hardware architecture and modified hierarchical software architecture with Sensor Data Bus (SDB) were used. The SDB makes it possible to get a prompt response from high-level control with respect to low-level sensor data. SAUVIM Task Description Language (STDL) was also developed to increase the flexibility of the vehicle tasks. Using STDL, any modification of control software is not required for various tasks. The user can also easily describe a task with various sensor data and handle multiple actuators. Copyright (C) 2003 IFAC.