MONSUN - A Modular Testbed for Swarms of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

For analysis and mapping as well as long-term stud- ies of water bodies, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are considered to be a trendsetting opportunity with high potential. Underwater robots combine many benefits differing them from conventional methods like manual explorations with divers and boats or static underwater sensor nets. It is possible to investigate hard-to-reach areas coupled with a significant lower amount of work and costs and the possible applications are getting safer. The use of a robot swarm increases the number of possible applications. The swarm members are simple in construction, nevertheless allowing inspections in a wider area over a longer period. Apart from that the control of a swarm proves to be more complex than for a single robot. As a consequence principles from nature like emergence, self-organisation and self-adaption are becoming increasingly popular.
A testbed to evaluate the mentioned principles under realistic conditions is illustrated in this paper. The current development and design concept of the underwater robot MONSUN is described, which is based on robustness and modularity to get a submersible platform for use in robot swarms.