Implementation of System Software-In-Loop Simulation Test-bed for an Extra-Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

A software-in-the-loop simulation(SILS)-based test environment of an maritime unmanned system can be a critical tool for verifying and validating the system softwares as well as estimating and evaluating the autonomous mission execution and operational performance of the system prior to the system integration and sea trials. Implementation of a SILS-based test-bed is described in this paper which enables the integrated test and verification of various onboard system softwares of an extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle(XLUUV). The test-bed consists of a remote control simulation module, a vehicle simulation module, and a simulation management module. Underwater motion control simulations and autonomous mission execution simulations were conducted and analyzed to validate the usefulness of the test-bed. The results of the underwater motion control simulations show an acceptable correspondence with those of the hardware-in-the-loop simulations(HILS), that prove the fidelity and credibility of the SILS for the simulation purpose.