An environment simulator for a KBS controlled underwater vehicle

The inconvenience of using a submersible vehicle in an ocean environment to test the vehicle software has created the need for an environment simulator which allows for testing of the vehicle software on a convenient development system. The architecture and capabilities of such a simulator which has been implemented for the EAVE submersible, a knowledge based system (KBS) controlled vehicle developed by the Marine System Engineering Laboratory, are described. The simulator features include the ability to simulate multiple vehicles, a graphics display which shows the movement of the vehicle in three dimensions, numerical display of sensor values generated, and an interactive menu system which allows the user to cause vehicle failures during simulation. The vehicle-simulator interface appears to the software to be identical to the vehicle-sensors interface so no modifications must be made to the software to use the simulator. A generic architecture allows for flexibility in the types of data generated and in the scenarios defined by the user. The use of the simulator to test the software in a complex demonstration which will subsequently be performed by the vehicle is discussed.