Design and simulation of an underwater swarm algorithm

Bachelor Thesis at TU Delft researching the feasibility of an autonomous underwater robot swarm in completing specialized tasks in a simulated environment. Two different cases were used to test the swarm. The first scenario,inspecting underwater mooring chains and the second finding and following a moving gradient (e.g. salinity levels).
The swarm behaves following the rules of Boids swarming algorithm using agent-based modeling written in Matlab.

Research goals:

• Implementing and comparing a 6-DOF Newton-Euler motion model.
• Overcoming the limitations of underwater communication by implementing signal relay in the behavioral algorithm.
• Developing a new simulation environment; a underwater gradient (e.g. salinity)

Together with: Jozef Stuijt, Yannick Chance & Daan van Vrede
Supervisors: Tim Vercruyssen (PhD), Chris Verhoeven