Design and Implementation of a Peer-to-Peer Communication, Modular and Decentral YellowCube UUV

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and implementation of a modular, peer-to-peer communication-enabled underwater unmanned vehicle called YellowCube, allowing flexible sensor integration for diverse missions, verified through lab and sea experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel modular UUV with decentralized P2P communication, contrasting with traditional centralized architectures, enhancing flexibility and upgradeability.

Findings

Successful laboratory and sea trial performance verification

Effective modular design with changeable payload sections

Decentralized P2P communication improves flexibility

Abstract

The underwater Unmanned Vehicles(UUVs) are pivot tools for offshore engineering and oceanographic research. Most existing UUVs do not facilitate easy integration of new or upgraded sensors. A solution to this problem is to have a modular UUV system with changeable payload sections capable of carrying different sensor to suite different missions. The design and implementation of a modular and decentral UUV named YellowCube is presented in the paper. Instead a centralised software architecture which is adopted by the other modular underwater vehicles designs, a Peer-To-Peer(P2P) communication mechanism is implemented among the UUV's modules. The experiments in the laboratory and sea trials have been executed to verify the performances of the UUV.