Optimal communication control for cooperative autonomous underwater vehicle networks

Robotic networks for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV's) are an area where efficient use of the communications channel can increase both the mission time and the amount of information communicated between the AUVS, thus resulting in a more effective mission. The traffic in robotic networks must be managed in such a way that takes into account transmission delay, power efficiency, and traditional network measures such as queue length, throughput, and bandwidth efficiency. System optimization of all these criteria is possible because of the cooperative nature of robotic networks. This paper presents a procedure for constructing optimal controllers that limit and route information flow in a network of AUVs. Particular attention is paid to the objectives of maximizing throughput and bandwidth efficiency while minimizing power consumption and queue length. A receding horizon control approach is adopted and shown to yield piecewise continuous optimal controllers that are unique.