A Virtual World for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle                                         

Don Brutzman                                                  
Michael J. Zyda                                           
Michael Macedonia                                             
Rodney Luck                                                   

Code OR/Br, Naval PostgraduateSchool                          
Monterey CA 93943-5000                                        
(408) 656-2149 office, (408) 372-0190 home                    
(408) 656-2595 FAX, brutzman@nps.navy.mil                     


ABSTRACT                                                         
A critical bottleneck exists in Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) design and                          
development. It is tremendously difficult to observe, communicate with and test underwater robots,
because they operate in a remote and hazardous environment where physical dynamics and sensing
modalities are counter intuitive.
An underwater virtual world can comprehensively model all salient functional                           
characteristics of the real world in real time. This virtual world is designed from the perspective of
the robot, enabling realistic AUV evaluation and testing in the laboratory. 3D real-time graphics  
are our window into that virtual world.
Visualization of robot interactions within a virtual world permits sophisticated
analyses of robot performance that are otherwise unavailable. Sonar visualization permits
researchers to accurately "look over the robot's shoulder" or even "see through the robot's eyes" to
intuitively understand sensor-environment interactions.
Distribution of underwater virtual world components enables scalability and real-time
response. The IEEE Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocol is used for compatible live
interaction with other virtual worlds. Network access allows individuals remote access. This is
demonstrated via MBONE collaboration with others outside The Edge, and Mosaic access to                                    
pertinentarchivedimages, papers,datasets,software, soundclips, text and any other computer storable media.                                                                                                        
This project presents the frontier of 3D real-time graphics for underwater robotics,
ocean exploration, sonar visualization and worldwide scientific collaboration.


REFERENCES                                                                                                         
Brutzman, Donald P. 1992. From virtual world to reality: designing an
autonomous underwater robot, American Association for Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI) Fall Symposium on Applications of Artificial Intelligenceto Real-World                    
Autonomous Mobile Robots, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 23-25, 1992,
pp. 18-22.
Macedonia, Michael R. and Brutzman, Donald P. 1994. MBONE Provides Video
and Audio Across the Internet, IEEE Computer, to appear April 1994.
Brutzman, Donald P., Kanayama, Yutaka, and Zyda, Michael J. 1992. Integrated
Simulation for Rapid Development of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles,
Proceedings of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Conference AUV92,
Washington DC, June 2-3, 1992, pp. 3-10.
Brutzman, Donald P. and Compton, Mark A. 1991. AUV Research at the Naval
Postgraduate School, Sea Technology, vol. 32 no. 12, December 1991, pp. 35-40.
Brutzman, Donald P. 1992. NPS AUV Integrated Simulator, Master's Thesis, Naval                      
Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, March 1992.                                            
Brutzman, Donald P., Floyd, Charles A. and Whalen, Russell. 1992. Naval
Postgraduate School Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Video Proceedings of the
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 92, Nice, France,
May 1992.                                                                                        
Brutzman, Donald P., editor. 1993. Video Proceedings of the Eighth International
Symposium on Unmanned Untethered Submersible Technology, University of New
Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, September 27-29, 1993.
Ziomek, Lawrence J. and Policky, F. Wynn. The RRA Algorithm: Recursive Ray
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Engineering, vol. 18 no. 1, January 1993, pp. 25-30.
Zyda, Michael J., Jurewicz, Thomas A., Floyd, Charles A. and McGhee, Robert B.
1991. Physically Based Modeling of Rigid Body Motion in a Real-Time Graphical
Simulator, unpublished paper, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, 
September 1991.                                                                                   
Zyda, Michael J., Pratt, David R., Falby, John S. and Kelleher, Kristen M. 1993.                 
The Software Required for the Computer Generation of Virtual Environments,
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