Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are submersible underwater vehicles controlled by onboard computers. AUV formation is a cooperative control which focuses on controlling multiple AUVs to move in a group while executing tasks. In contrast to a single AUV, multi-AUV formation represents higher efficiency and better stability for many applications, such as oil and gas industries, hydrographic surveys, and military missions, etc. To achieve better formation, there are several key factors, including AUV performance, formation control, and communication capability. However, most studies in the field of AUV formation mainly focus on formation control methods. We observe that the research of communication capability and AUV performance of multiple AUV formation is still in an early stage. It is beneficial to researchers to present a comprehensive survey of the state of the art of AUV formation research and development. In this paper, we study AUV, formation control, and underwater acoustic communication capability in detail. We propose a classification framework with three dimensions, including AUV performance, formation control, and communication capability. This framework provides a comprehensive classification method for future AUV formation research. It also can be used to compare different methods and help engineers choose suitable formation methods for various applications. Moreover, our survey discusses formation architecture with communication constraints and we identify some common misconceptions and questionable research for formation control related to communication.

中文翻译：

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自主水下航行器编队调查：性能、编队控制和通信能力


自主水下航行器（AUV）是由机载计算机控制的潜水式水下航行器。 AUV编队是一种协作控制，重点是控制多艘AUV在执行任务时成群移动。与单个AUV相比，多AUV编队对于许多应用来说意味着更高的效率和更好的稳定性，例如石油和天然气工业、水文测量和军事任务等。为了实现更好的编队，有几个关键因素，包括AUV性能、编队控制和通信能力。然而，AUV编队领域的大多数研究主要集中在编队控制方法上。我们观察到，多AUV编队的通信能力和AUV性能的研究仍处于早期阶段。对 AUV 编队研究和开发的现状进行全面的调查有利于研究人员。在本文中，我们详细研究了AUV、编队控制和水声通信能力。我们提出了一个具有三个维度的分类框架，包括AUV性能、编队控制和通信能力。该框架为未来AUV编队研究提供了全面的分类方法。它还可用于比较不同的方法，帮助工程师为各种应用选择合适的形成方法。此外，我们的调查讨论了具有通信限制的编队架构，并且我们发现了与通信相关的编队控制的一些常见误解和可疑研究。