Object-oriented frameworks for distributed fine-grained simulation of underwater vehicles

The next generation of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) developed for oil and gas exploration will need to be at least semi-autonomous in order to operate in untethered mode at ever greater depths. This paper describes the creation of a simulation-based tool which aims to help meet some of these challenges. The tool will assist the UUV designer in experimenting with new vehicle configurations and with testing them out in the safety of a virtual world, before progressing to a hardware environment. The infrastructure supporting this distributed simulation is described here. Details are given of the two implementations which have been created so far, and comparisons are made.