Autonomous cooperation of heterogeneous platforms for sea-based search tasks

Many current methods of search using autonomous marine vehicles do not adapt to changes in mission objectives or the environment. A cellular-decomposition-based framework for cooperative, adaptive search is proposed that allows multiple search platforms to adapt to changes in both mission objectives and environmental parameters. Software modules for the autonomy framework MOOS-IvP are described that implement this framework. Simulated and experimental results show that it is feasible to combine both pre-planned and adaptive behaviors to effectively search a target area.