Simu2VITA: A General Purpose Underwater Vehicle Simulator

Abstract

This article presents an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle simulator named Simu2VITA, which was designed to be rapid to set up, easy to use, and simple to modify the vehicle’s parameters. Simulation of the vehicle dynamics is divided into three main Modules: the Actuator Module, the Allocation Module and the Dynamics Model. The Actuator Module is responsible for the simulation of actuators such as propellers and fins, the Allocation Module translates the action of the actuators into forces and torques acting on the vehicle and the Dynamics Module implements the dynamics equations of the vehicle. Simu2VITA implements the dynamics of the actuators and of the rigid body of the vehicle using the MATLAB/Simulink® framework. To show the usefulness of the Simu2VITA simulator, simulation results are presented for an unmanned underwater vehicle navigating inside a fully flooded tunnel and then compared with sensor data collected when the real vehicle performed the same mission using the controllers designed employing the simulator.