Over the years, AUVs have gained attention as specialized tools for carrying out various underwater operations, eventually leading to a dramatic increase in the number of scientific studies undertaken (Blidberg, 2001). There are four separate sub-classes of unmanaged vehicles (UVs) systems. Submersibles towed UVs behind ships are the first category, serving as ideal platforms for adding different sensors. The second category is the remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which gets directly controlled by the surface ship, with power and connectivity (Roberts, 2008). The unmanned untethered vehicle (UUV) is the third group, with its own onboard control, but is controlled remotely through a means of wireless communication protocol. Budiyono (2009). Nevertheless, the requirement for a networking link and control platform restricts ROV and UUV usage and their capability (Gonzalez, 2004). The fourth category of UVs, the AUVs, are fully autonomous underwater platforms capable of conducting underwater operations and activities and have their own sensor, control and payload equipment (Blidberg, 2001). The key benefit of an AUV is that a human operator is not required, is cheaper than a manually driven vehicle, and is able to work that is too risky for a human being (Alt, 2003; Caccia, 2006; Side and Junku, 2005; Smallwood David and Whitcomb, 2004) like monitoring of rising levels of seas (Hadi et al., 2020). In the 1980s, innovation and software developments enhanced the research to facilitate the design and implementation of sophisticated autonomous system (Blidberg, 2001). Nowadays, technicians, engineers, and computer programmers play an important role in developing technologies (Innella and Rodgers, 2021) and the developed tools can be used in various applications. The enthusiasm in AUVs in academic science has therefore been revived and several universities have built their own AUVs. The Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) of the University of Sydney runs an ocean-going AUV labeled Sirius, Designed at WHOI in the form of an Integrated Marine Observation System (IMOS), AUV facility supports competitively to facilitate deployment in Australia as a contributor to marine studies (Singh et al., 2004; Williams et al., 2009). There are many AUV contests in which a vehicle has a certain duty to carry out autonomously, which are mostly organized by colleges or other educational institutions (Gonzalez, 2004; Akhtman et al., 2008).
Power and autonomy are the two most critical technical obstacles in AUV design, since the former sets limitations on mission times and the latter decides the degree to which an AUV may be independent (Holtzhausen, 2010). While AUVs are more precise due to new technology, the creation of a completely autonomous one is an incredibly challenging problem as precise and robust controllers are required. (Salgado-Jimenez et al., 2004; Salman et al., 2011). Holtzhausen (2010) claimed that the structure of the AUV is one of the most critical aspects of an AUV. There are a number of ways to approach the construction that must take into account factors such as the pressure and/or depth needed, height, operating temperature ranges, conditions of impact, and water permeability along with corrosion and chemical resistance. The hydrodynamic coefficients that decide the dynamics of the AUV are affected not only by the structure of the AUV but also by the water current and the vehicle speed and an innovative method to evaluate velocity and heading is proposed in Rezaali and Ardalan (2016). Moreover, a hull is built to minimize the drag for reducing the propulsive force (Wang et al., 2009a). Wang stated that the first shape proposed for a hull was a spherical design, while this could withstand pressure, it influenced stability. So a circular cylindrical design, which has the benefits of being a good framework to resist the effects of hydrostatic pressure, can be expanded to provide extra room internally, seems to be a better hydrodynamic shape than a spherical one with the same volume (Ross 2006; Wang et al., 2009b). The cavitations (Kondoa and Ura, 2004) and instability (Ross, 2006) are, however, the drawbacks of a cylindrical hull. Most of the existing AUVs have a cylindrical circular hull (Evans and Nahon, 2004; Hsu et al., 2005; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2012). Similarly, a spherical shaped nose has enhanced stability and cavitation (Wang et al., 2009b).
The dynamics of an AUV are determined mainly by propulsion and buoyancy. Four kinds of propulsion systems are possible. Most common form of propulsion is via thrusters with dynamic diving technology. The other three come from static diving technology, they are piston-type ballast tank, a hydraulic pump-based ballast system and air compressor-based system (Krieg and Mohseni, 2008; Wolf, 2003).
AUV can use a single thruster for both horizontal and vertical movements with diving planes (Kondoa and Ura, 2004). The thruster technique allows the AUV to be near-neutrally buoyant with the major benefit that the vehicle can hover without propulsion. Even then, once the vehicle is in motion, the thrusters must remain ON, since it has to drive forward to remain submerged. For propulsion, most AUVs use propeller-type thrusters (Cavallo et al., 2005; Von Alt, 2003; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2012).
Jet propulsion is another method influenced by the natural locomotion of squids and other cephalopods, whereby water is pulled into a wide cavity and expelled through a nozzle at a high momentum to propel the vehicle forward (Griffiths et al., 2000). This gives the potential of an AUV to carry out low-speed maneuvering without impacting the forward drag on its structure. In this research, this type of propulsion is used to maneuver the vehicle while the propeller is being used for forward motion in the horizontal and vertical planes.
Power demands for all the equipment, such as on-board controls, motor controllers, propulsion systems, sensors and instruments, and navigation systems, must be fulfilled and supported by the electrical system of the AUV. While some AUVs are operated by fuel cells and a few uses solar power, the most popular ones are operated by batteries (Hyakudome et al., 2009; Jalbert et al., 2003). Silent operation, ease of speed regulation and simplicity are the benefits of utilizing electrical over thermal propulsion. Since lithium-ion battery technological advancements have made them an attractive alternative to silver-zinc batteries (Wilson and Bales, 2006), they are employed in our research.
A pressure sensor is the most common sensor used in vehicle depth measurement. Strain gauges and quartz crystals are the most common pressure sensor technologies for deep-ocean applications (Kinsey et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2009a).
GPS can provide superior 3-D navigation functionality. Since the water absorbs the radio signals in underwater conditions, it can be used only when a vehicle surfaces periodically to correct the readings (Nicholson and Healey, 2008). This implies that other sensors, such as the Long Baseline (LBL), Doppler Velocity Log (DVL), and magnetometer or compass are needed for the tracking and navigation of underwater vehicles for GPS fixes (Kinsey et al., 2006); e.g., Bluefin-21 AUV surfaces are needed periodically for GPS fixes. The echo sounder (Gonzalez, 2004) was used in the MAKO AUV project as another method to assess vertical depth, but only if the depth of the water is known.
The LBL, Ultra-short Baseline (USBL), and Short Baseline (SBL) systems (Kinsey et al., 2006) are known as underwater acoustic positioning systems used for depth measurement. The LBL device is essentially a method of triangulation which is used when a vehicle triangulates the acoustic position of the vehicle in the network of transponders (beacons) used on the seabed with known locations (The International Marine Contractors Association IMCA, 2009). A complete system comprises of a transceiver placed under a ship and a vehicle transponder. The time between initial acoustic pulse transmission and reaction detection is estimated and transformed into a range.
A DVL is a sensor that uses high frequency Doppler beam sonar for calculating the Doppler changes of sonar signals reflected in the ground (Wang et al., 2009b). This navigation method is only useful if the vehicle is above the sea level (18–100 m), since it is more precise at low speed and not affected by sea currents (Nicholson and Healey, 2008).
The most popular sensors used in marine equipment are magnetic sensors or electronic compass modules. Vasilijevic (Vasilijevic et al., 2012) reported that a magnetometer calculates the magnetic field of the Earth in the X, Z coordinates position and returns these three measures separately to represent the magnetic field vector values. There are a wide number of single-axis (heading only) and three-axis flux-gate magnetometers available commercially. The overall efficiency of a navigation device is mostly based on the accuracy of its magnetic sensor, which is believed to be the leading cause of error. There are three different causes of errors: the magnetic interference of the vehicle with itself or the environment (Ye et al., 2009), the compensation of the roll and pitch dependent on gravity, and finally, the orientation of the compass mounting within the vehicle.
Stutters indicated that the Inertial Navigation Device (INS) or Inertial Management Unit (IMU) utilizes accelerometers and gyroscopic sensors to detect vehicle acceleration of the three axes (Stutters et al., 2008). A gyroscope measures rotation levels, and linear acceleration is determined by an accelerometer. IMU sensors are not prone to magnetic fluctuations and drift with time, leading to erroneous measurements. Laser or fiber-optic gyroscopes do not have moving components and are included in the new INSs (Wang et al., 2009b).
A mixture of two or more of the above systems has often established some of the finest AUV navigation systems. Multi-sensor integration can be characterized as the synergistic use of multiple sensory device information that can minimize navigational errors to assist a system in carrying out its tasks (Holtzhausen, 2010).
In brief, the main objective of navigation sensors is to acquire the data and parameters of an AUV system in real time from its surrounding environment. These data are then collected by the AUV control system through its processing unit to control and maneuver AUVs effectively in order to perform a pre-identified operation.
The control accuracy provided by guidance and control systems is the basis for the successful completion of AUV missions as the autonomous control of an AUV poses serious challenges due to its complex, inherently nonlinear, and time-varying dynamics. In addition, its hydrodynamic coefficients are difficult to model accurately because of their variations under different navigational conditions and when manoeuvring in uncertain environments which expose an AUV to unpredictable external disturbances. Hence, there is a need to design and develop a robust and stable control system which can achieve AUV’s desired positions and velocities, satisfy the commands generated by its guidance system and maintain steady conditions during its mission. In order to design an adaptive controller for an AUV, suitable models of the nonlinear plant are necessary as the controllers have to cope with uncertainties due to discrepancies in modeling the unknown dynamics of the plant.
Thus, the development of an AUV for research or commercial purpose involves a number of criteria to be satisfied along with the cost. This paper proposes the development of an AUV. The main goal of this study is to develop an in-house project, find low-cost solutions for AUV navigation problems, and develop a small-sized, low-cost AUV. The platform is expected to demonstrate autonomous manoeuvre for changing conditions and under the influence of external disturbances in a controlled environment such as a swimming pool.
The rest of the paper structure is organized as follows. The detailed specifications of different AUV subsystems considered for the work in this study are described in the second section. The third section discusses the AUV complete system and its integration. The kinematics and the nonlinear mathematical modeling of an AUV in 6-DOF is discussed in the fourth section that includes the Simulink/Matlab model of the AUV along with the investigation of its open-loop characteristics. The main features of the Hardware-in-Loop (HIL) simulation are explained in the fifth section. The sixth section presents the experimental results of the proposed model-based control algorithm on the AUV. The study is concluded in the final section.
Platform design
The integration on the UNSW Canberra AUV with electrical and electronic systems, which include prototypes, specifications, power distribution system and storage, actuators and sensors, is discussed. The instrumentation required to accommodate on board the AUV in order the completely collect the data associated with different maneauvers, the interface and integration of all subsystems with the PC 104 device are addressed.
This paper presents the development of an AUV experimental platform with adaptive control capabilities aimed at achieving the mission requirements. A detailed block diagram indicating different stages in this project is shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1:
Block diagram of various stages of project.
UNSW Canberra AUV platform
In the UNSW Canberra workshop, a torpedo-shaped underwater vehicle prototype is constructed as a demonstration of the concepts of the underwater vehicle, which comprises of three segments; nose cone, body (middle section), and tail cone. Hassanein et al. (2011, 2013). The nose and tail cone moulds are made up of Stayfoam, then wrapped with fiberglass and those are wet sections to decrease the buoyancy force. The body is made of a 255 mm PVC pipe and is known to be the dry section where the batteries are located along with the circuitry, sensors, and control unit. The dry portion is segregated by the bulkheads for providing waterproof environment. An on-board data logger and control unit have been equipped with the AUV platform to allow sensor and actuator data to be recorded and processed to implement advanced system identification and control techniques. Necessary computers and sensors are chosen, considering the need for low cost, compact, simplicity of program and processor capabilities. The UNSW Canberra AUV model is shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2:
UNSW Autonomous Underwater Vehicle platform (Hassanein et al., 2011).
Actuators
The AUV employs two forms of actuators, the electrical propeller for thrust and secondly, four bilge pumps to operate in the horizontal and vertical axis.
The thrusters that use propeller systems and a small DC motor wrapped in a watertight enclosure to spin the propeller that produce torque are the key method of actuation in the AUV. The existing thruster is a 12Vdc electric motor, typically employed for small river vessels. The ‘Endura C2’ thruster was obtained from a ‘MINN KOTA’ company shown in Fig. 3. An ‘ET-OPTO RELAY4’ made by the ‘ETT’ company is used since the electric motor requires a controller or driver shown in Fig. 3. According to the function and operating order, this has two inputs to drive the motor, the power given by the battery and a control signal from the I/O module in the processor unit.

Figure 3:
Forward thruster with electrical motor driver.
In order to maneuver in horizontal and vertical planes (pitch and lake angle), submersible bilge pumps are obtained from a company named ‘Rule Mate.’ These are shown in Fig. 4. There are three distinct pump configurations and all the pumps are battery operated by 12 Vdc. The left and right pumps used to control the AUV in the horizontal plane have an output of 750 GPH and a force of 0.0022 N. The pump used to push down this vehicle is rated by 0.0033 N at 1,000 GPH and by 0.0044 N at 1,500 GPH. The pumps are operated in on/off mode using the control unit’s PWM signals. The motor driver for such pumps is an ET-OPTO DC-OUT4 manufactured by ETT as shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 4:
Submersible bilge pump with the motor driver.
Inertial measurements UNIT (IMU)
The IMU is the key sensor used for AUV navigation and comprises three gyroscopes and three accelerometers, each mounted along the X, Y, and Z axes for the calculation of rotational speeds and linear accelerations. The gyroscope data was used to calculate the rotations of the vehicle along the three axes indicated by roll, pitch, and yaw. In terms of these three DOFs, the rotational position of the vehicle is calculated by the determination of the rotational velocity integral over the period of the measurement. In order to determine the location of the vehicle in a three-dimensional space, one must continuously convert from the local coordination system of the vehicle to the coordination system of the earth. This transformation is addressed later in this paper. The ADIS16367 shown in Fig. 5 is the unique IMU used in this project, which is a 3-axis system acquired from Analog Devices Co. The ADIS16367 combines industry-leading and signal conditioning IMEMS technology that optimizes dynamic efficiency and is a comparatively cheap device. IMU outputs are compared with the calibrated digital compass outputs with no major errors amongst them.

Figure 5:
ADIS16367 unit.
A serial peripheral interface (SPI) card was designed and developed as part of this project as shown in Fig. 6. An I/O board is necessary for dealing with the lower level interface between the IMU and the processing device. The I/O module is on the ATmega168-based Arduino Pro-Mini microcontroller board consisting of 14 digital input/output pins, 6 analog inputs, an on-board resonator, a reset button and pin header mounting holes. To provide communication to the board and USB power, a six-pin header can be plugged into an FTDI cable or Sparkfun breakout board. The serial peripheral interface sends the data to the PC104 at a rate of 115 kbps through an RS232 serial port.

Figure 6:
SPI interface for IMU.
A ‘burst data read collection’ is the best way to retrieve data from the IMU, which is a process-efficient form of obtaining ADIS16367 data in which all output registers are clocked on DOUT (SPI Data Output), 16 bits at a time, in sequential data cycles (each divided by a single SCLK interval (SPI Serial Clock)). DIN (SPI data input) is set to 0x3E00 to start a burst read sequence, then the contents of every output register is transferred to DOUT, that is from SUPPLY OUT to AUX ADC, as seen in Figs. 6 and 7. The data are being sent to a PC104 on-board COM port which contains RS232 driver blocks to handle serial communications provided by the Matlab xPC goal toolbox.

Figure 7:
Burst read sequence (ADIS16367 Data Sheet).
Electronic Digital Compass
A magnetometer or electronic digital compass is also a sensor used for the AUV navigation, which measures the magnet field of the Earth in the direction of the X, Y, and Z axes. It returns the three measurements separately to provide the magnetic field vector values, which are then used for determining the heading of the vehicle. It does not need to be transformed since this heading calculation is taken in the global reference frame or coordinates. The magnetometer is susceptible to other disturbance in the magnetic field of the Earth. To stop incorrect readings, it can be recalibrated before any dive. The magnetometer can often be disturbed by other magnetic objects in close vicinity of the sensor as well.
As shown in the Fig. 8, an Oceansever OS5000-USD with a depth sensor, a 3-axis tilt-compensated compass with both Serial & USB direct interfaces and connections on both sides of the module, is the digital compass used in this project. It comprises a 3-axis AMR magnetic tracker, a 3-axis STM accelerometer, a 50 MIPS microprocessor that facilitates precise tilt correction floating point IEEE operations and 24-bit differential input Sigma-Delta AD converters.

Figure 8:
Wiring from pressure sensor to compass.
For operation, the compass needs power supply of 5 V, when attached to the pressure sensor, it measures the depth and its outputs include a heading, pitch and roll in degrees, a 3-axis magnetic field, a 3-axis acceleration, gyro reading in 2 axes and temperature. Its built-in calibration involves rotation around the Z, Y, and X axes that takes place after installation in the AUV and before the experiments begin.
Water pressure sensor
The water pressure is a variation in the surface pressure and it is calculated in Pascals (Pa). A water pressure sensor used in this project for measuring the water pressure on the exterior of the vehicle and for determining the vehicle’s depth. As there is a linear relationship between the water pressure and the vehicle’s depth, this can be easily determined from Pascals law,
(1)where ρ is the water density in kg/m3, Δh is the depth of the vehicle in meters (m) and g is the gravitational acceleration (9.81 m/s2).The water pressure sensor used in this project is an LM series low-pressure media-isolated sensor with an analogue interface. It uses three wires, power, ground and signal. The output signal range is between 0.5 and 4.5 V depending on the pressure. The relationship between the measured voltage and water pressure is linear. As this sensor has a measuring range from 0 to 15 PSI, it can be used to measure depths of up to 10 m. It is connected directly to the digital compass to calculate the depth, as shown in Fig. 8.
A 50 cm tube with a tape measure is placed on the sensor to calibrate the sensor. The water is then fed into the tube every 2 cm and the values obtained were recorded. The error of depth measurement is less than 0.14 mm. Fig. 9 shows the acquired precision of the measurement.

Figure 9:
Depth measurement accuracy from water pressure sensor.
On-board computer
AUV is managed by an on-board processing unit, which involves fast processors and broad memories. The PC104 architecture is one of those widely used processors for embedded systems. A great feature of the architecture of the PC104 is that it has a defined form factor that enables to have several add-on boards compatible with the main processor card. The other benefits of the PC104 system are its compact size and high processing capacity. There is an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus for these PC104 boards that runs through all the interconnected boards. On the ISA bus there are 104 pins. The PC104-plus comes with an ISA bus and a peripheral part interface (PCI). The PCI bus works at lower levels of voltage and is much faster than the ISA bus. In contrast to the ISA bus width of 16 bits, the PCI bus is 32 bits or 64 bits wide.
Compared to many other architectures, the advantages of a PC 104-based embedded device have contributed to the usage of this AUV design in UNSW Canberra with a PC104-plus, which comprise the core of the AUV control unit. It incorporates an Intel Atom N450 processor with 1 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, speed of 1.66 GHz, and it uses a compact flash disk for real-time applications as data storage.
It consists four USB ports, one Ethernet port and two serial COM ports. The serial ports are either RS-232 or RS-485, chosen by jumpers on the chip-set. Fig. 10 shows the analog and digital I/O boards and a DC-DC supply card; these are also included in the modules on the PC104 Stack.

Figure 10:
PC104 computer system stack.
The dedicated PC104 architecture power supply board PCM-3910, is used to provide constant voltages of various amplitudes. As compared to other standard methods, this board provides reliable voltage regulation. This board has a 10–30 V input range and provides on-board 5, 12, ‒5, and ‒12 V outputs for the stack and various sensors. PC104 stack also contains an Analog-to-Digital (A/D) conversion board, DMM-32X-AT by Diamond Systems. The resolution of A/D is 16-bit with 32 analog channels.
The PC104’s real-time environment is an xPC target, a Matlab toolbox that offers the Matlab® Simulink® real-time kernel and application development environment. It instantly produces code via the Real-Time Workshop (RTW), which can be downloaded to a second computer utilizing the xPC target real-time kernel for simplification and minimization of development time and debugging. Using the Simulink® libraries available on Matlab®, the Simulink model is initially developed and then compiled using the xPC target option which creates an executable embedded code that can be downloaded to the target device.
Power distribution
The whole power distribution system is fitted with a wireless power switch that enables the hardware to be connected and disconnected from the distance. There are four batteries in the AUV’s battery system; two 12 V 20 Ah batteries and two 12 V 2.5 Ah batteries. The power specifications of on-board modules are as follows; one 12 Vdc 20 Ah battery supplies the thruster and the second one supplies the bilge pumps. A 12V 2.5 Ah is required by the PC104 and has its own power module to supply the processor and I/O modules. Another power distribution system has been designed that connects directly to the fourth battery and it provides 5 V to water pressure sensors, IMU, magnetometers, and digital compass sensors.
System integration
The PC104 is the system that performs all of the key control tasks. It is then link to the IO module, which includes low-level interfaces for both sensors and actuators. Fig. 11 displays the whole system and its integration, showing all interfaces between the AUV hardware and component interfaces. The integrated system used to control the AUV maneuvering is shown in Fig. 12. Eventually, the AUV parameter values are measured and indicated in Table 1 (Hassanein et al., 2013).
Table 1.
Specifications of AUV model.
| Parameter | Calculated value | Unit | Parameter | Calculated value | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mass of the AUV | 10.4102 | Kg | CG (original) | [‒10.7498‒3.49512428.206] | mm |
| Payload capacity | 21.1408 | Kg | Total length (L) | 1.064 | m |
| Mass of AUV + Payload | 31.551 | Kg | Diameter (d) | 0.250 | m |
| Ix | 0.6384 | Kg.m2 | Speed | 1 | m/s |
| Iy | 6.4110 | Kg.m2 | 1000 | Kg/m3 | |
| Iz | 6.4110 | Kg.m2 | BC | [0 0 0] | m |
| CG | [0 0 0] | m | BC(original) | [0 0 21.306] | mm |
| Parameter | Calculated value | Unit | Parameter | Calculated value | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ‒7.365 | Kg/m | ‒2.12 | Kg/sec | ||
| ‒0.737 | Kg/m | ‒0.31 | Kg/sec | ||
| ‒0.737 | Kg/m | ‒0.31 | Kg/sec | ||
| ‒1.065 | Kg.m/rad | ‒0.51 | Kg.m/sec | ||
| ‒1.065 | Kg.m/rad | ‒0.51 | Kg.m/sec | ||
| ‒112.2 | Kg/m | ‒62.45 | Kg/sec | ||
| 0.250 | Kg.m/rad | 0.12 | Kg.m/sec | ||
| ‒112.2 | Kg/m | ‒62.45 | Kg/sec | ||
| ‒0.250 | Kg.m/rad | 0.12 | Kg.m/sec | ||
| ‒0.5975 | Kg.m2/rad2 | ‒0.3125 | Kg.m2/sec | ||
| 2.244 | Kg.m/rad | 1.2 | Kg.m/sec | ||
| ‒119.5 | Kg.m2/rad2 | ‒59.75 | Kg.m2/sec | ||
| ‒2.244 | Kg.m/rad | 1.2 | Kg.m/sec | ||
| ‒59.75 | Kg.m2/rad2 | ‒31.25 | Kg.m2/sec | ||
| ‒1.17 | Kg | 0 | Kg.m/rad | ||
| ‒34.834 | Kg | ‒1.042 | Kg.m/rad | ||
| 1.042 | Kg.m/rad | ‒2.659 | Kg.m/rad | ||
| ‒34.834 | Kg | ‒1.042 | Kg.m/rad | ||
| ‒1.042 | Kg.m/rad | ‒2.659 | Kg.m/rad |















