NPS AUV workbench: collaborative environment for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) mission planning and 3D visualization

Abstract : The absence of common software platforms for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) mission planning and analysis is an ongoing impediment to collaborative work between research institutions, their partners, and end users, This thesis details the design and implementation of a distributable application to facilitate AUV mission planning and analysis. Java-based open-source libraries and a component-based framework provide diverse functionalities. The extensible Markup Language (XML) is used for data storage and message exchange, Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics for visualization and XML Schema-based Binary Compression (XSBC) for data compression. The AUV Workbench provides an intuitive cross-platform-capable tool with extensibility to provide for future enhancements such as agent-based control, asynchronous reporting and communication, loss-free message compression and built-in support for mission data archiving. This thesis also investigates the Jabber instant messaging protocol, showing its suitability for text and file messaging in a tactical environment. Exemplars show that the XML backbone of this open-source technology can be leveraged to enable both human and agent messaging with improvements over current systems. Integrated Jabber instant messaging support makes the NPS AUV Workbench the first custom application supporting XML Tactical Chat (XTC).

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