• AUV
• ASV
• motion planning
• trajectory optimization
• cooperative robotic
• underwater navigation

The thesis focuses on developing an algorithm to optimize the trajectory of an ASV in order to support the navigation of a team of AUVs. The ASV will provide range and bearing measurements, obtained using a USBL sensor, as well as its estimated position to the AUVs. This will enable the AUVs navigating via dead reckoning to correct their state estimates. The communication between the vehicles is facilitated through a communication protocol that utilizes the PiggyBack option of the acoustic modem. This allows for more frequent communication, which is suitable for cases involving communication with multiple AUVs. Periodically, the ASV plans its motion to minimize a cost functional based on the posterior covariance matrix of the AUVs. The position with the minimum cost will provide more informative range and bearing measurements to the AUVs. Additionally, a penalty is integrated into the functional for specific positions: those at a short distance to reduce the risk of collision and those too far from the vehicles, which could result in a loss of the acoustic channel.