| Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have become an indispensable tool for studying the oceans. They allow for the prolonged presence of scientific instruments in the ocean, enabling the collection of samples for several weeks or months at a time for a fraction of the cost of research vessels. These vehicles share common characteristics and constraints with other cyber-physical systems that include concerns for vehicle safety, a limited energy supply, the optimization and trade-off of resources, sporadic communication, and operation in extremely constrained environments. One such AUV is the Slocum Electric Glider. Although AUVs like the Slocum Glider have revolutionized the field of oceanography, many are difficult to program and thus limit their overall utility.;A new energy aware, domain specific programming framework for AUVs, called ALGAE (AUV Language for Greater Adaptability and Energy optimization), has been developed on the Slocum Glider. This framework enables scientists to easily create missions that use domain specific features to make trade-offs, such as sacrificing the quality at which the environment is sampled for a gain in vehicle endurance. Novel methods used in the framework make the vehicle a more effective scientific instrument. The system was specifically designed to support a mission critical platform that operates in an extremely constrained environment. In the new infrastructure, missions can be tested in simulation, but more importantly, can be compiled directly for use on the target platform. To evaluate the framework, simulations and field trials off the coast of New Jersey were performed to showcase the practicality of the system. Furthermore, because the framework was designed around a common set of constraints and characteristics, the mechanisms and approaches developed are widely applicable to many autonomous systems. |
