This paper presents a simulator for swarm operations designed to verify algorithms for a swarm of autonomous underwater robots (AUVs), specifically for constructing an underwater communication network with AUVs carrying acoustic communication devices. This simulator consists of three nodes: a virtual vehicle node (VV), a virtual environment node (VE), and a visual showing node (VS). The modular design treats AUV models as a combination of virtual equipment. An expert acoustic communication simulator is embedded in this simulator, to simulate scenarios with dynamic acoustic communication nodes. The several simulations we have performed demonstrate that this simulator is easy to use and can be further improved.
['Guannan Li', 'Jun Liu', 'Xue Wang', 'Hongli Xu', 'Jun-hong Cui']
A simulator for swarm AUVs acoustic communication networking