A Distributed Multi-level PSO Control Algorithm for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

This paper presents a distributed control technique based on the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm and able to drive in unknown environments a group of autonomous robots to a common target point. In this paper, we consider in particular the case of underwater vehicles. The algorithm is able to deal with complex scenarios, frequently found in benthic exploration as e.g. in presence of obstacles, caves and tunnels, and to consider the case of a mobile target. Moreover, asynchronous data exchange and dynamic communication topologies are considered. Simulations results are provided to show the features of the proposed approach