2017 IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium
Work In Progress: Networked Control of
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles with Acoustic
and Radio Frequency Hybrid Communication
Mehrullah Soomro, Saeed Nourizadeh Azar, Ozgur Gurbuz, Ahmet Onat
Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
Sabanci University
Istanbul, Turkey
mehrullah@sabanciuniv.edu, saeed@sabanciuniv.edu, ogurbuz@sabanciuniv.edu, onat@sabanciuniv.edu
Abstract—Underwater control applications, such as control of
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)s, have recently gained
significant interest, and there is a growing demand for high-speed
wireless communication between AUVs and base station. Acoustic
communication provides low data rates and high propagation
delays, both of which are not suitable for employing high control
gains for the navigation of AUVs. On the other hand, Radio
Frequency (RF) communication provides high data rate, but it
is constrained by high attenuation due to high conductivity and
permittivity of water resulting in a short working range. In this
work, we propose an underwater networked control system with
acoustic and RF hybrid communication, where an acoustic link is
employed for long range communication and RF link is applied
in close range. Our performance results indicate that the acoustic
and RF hybrid communication system takes up to 38.5% less time
to dock, up to 91% smaller steady state error and spends up to
39% lower communication energy as compared to the acoustic
only system at the expense of up to 22.35% higher motive energy.
Index Terms—Underwater Communication; Autonomous Un-
derwater Vehicle; Control; Medium Access Control; Acoustic;
Radio Frequency; Networked Control System.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Swarms of underwater robots have attracted significant
attention, as the drive for understanding the hidden world
beneath the water and exploiting its resources. This interest has
motivated researchers in developing new technologies for the
underwater environment. Underwater applications range from
instrument monitoring and control to climate recording. There
is a growing demand for high-speed communication between
AUVs and base station.
Although the acoustic waves used in underwater acoustic
communication can travel long distances for relaying informa-
tion, they provide low data rates and high propagation delays,
both of which are not suitable for employing high control gains
for the navigation of AUVs [1], [2]. Leveraging Radio Fre-
quency (RF) communication provides high data rate, however,
it is constrained by high attenuation due to high conductivity
The research leading to the presented results has been undertaken within
the SWARMs European project (Smart and Networking Underwater Robots in
Cooperation Meshes), under Grant Agreement n. 662107-SWARMs-ECSEL-
2014-1, which is partially supported by the ECSEL JU.
1052-8725/17/31.00 ©2017 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/RTSS.2017.00051
and permittivity of water resulting in a short working range.
In this work, we propose an underwater networked control
system with acoustic and RF hybrid communication, where
an acoustic link is employed for long range communication
and RF link in short range.
II. SYSTEM MODEL
The considered underwater system implements a docking
maneuver application, where a number of AUVs are navigated
towards a docking station, while transmissions of the nodes
are coordinated via different access schemes selected for the
respective communication mode. Fig. 1 depicts this scenario,
where the docking station is located at the bottom of a fresh
water lake/river and it is surrounded with multiple AUVs. The
docking station is equipped with an underwater positioning
system to find the positions of the AUVs and both are
equipped with acoustic and RF transceivers. The docking
station sends the position information to the AUVs via acoustic
or RF communication links, and the AUV uses the position
information to control its thrusters. This networked control
system is illustrated in Fig. 2. Although the RF communication
link only works for shorter range, the control loop sampling
period is smaller as compared to acoustic communication.
Therefore, control gains can be increased for faster response
in RF mode.
The communication links are modeled in terms of path loss
as follows: For the acoustic channel we consider the spreading
loss model, P Lspreading (r) = k10log(r), (where r is distance
in meters and k is the spreading factor) and absorption loss
model, P Labsorption (r, f ) = 10log(α(f ))r, (where r is dis-
tance in kilometers and α is the absorption coefficient). Total
path loss is given as sum of spreading and absorption losses as:
P L(r, f ) = k10log(r) + α(f )r10−3 [3]. For the RF channel,
the path loss is modelled as P L = R(γ)20/(ln(10))r, where
R denotes real part, r is distance; γ is propagation constant
given by γ = jω(Sqrt(μ − j(σμ/ω))), where ω denotes
frequency in rad/s,  stands for permittivity, μ is permeability,
and σ is the conductivity of water [4]. On top of path loss,
both channels are subject to fading.
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III. PROPOSED HYBRID COMMUNICATION Fig. 2. Block diagram of AUV and docking station navigation systems.
FRAMEWORK
TABLE I
In an effort to combine the best properties of acoustic S IMULATION PARAMETERS
and RF communication, we propose a hybrid communication
Parameters Acoustic RF
framework, which employs acoustic communication for long Frequency, f 100 KHz 10 MHz
range and switches to RF communication for short range Data rate 10 Kbps 3 Mbps
transmissions, while serving to carry the messages of the Frame time 0.7635 s 0.01 s
Max signal power 4.5 W 3W
underwater networked control system shown in Fig. 2.
Circuit power, Pc 1.1 W 4.5 W
The position of the AUV, as measured and transmitted by the DS Packet time, tDS 3.84 ∗ 10−2 s 1.28 ∗ 10−4 s
docking station is used as the plant output for the control algo- Sampling period, h 0.7635 s 0.01 s
rithm on-board, to calculate the position error and the desired Proportional gain, K 1.5 10
motion. The thrusters are activated accordingly to navigate RF mode, a small number of AUVs share the upstream RF
towards the docking station. One position message must be channel. Furthermore, since the data rate is high, the packet
received at each sampling time of the control algorithm. If not, transmission delays are small. As a result, the probability of
the previous thruster values are preserved. Note that, the high collisions in the upstream channel is low.
latency of acoustic communication enforces low control gains In both acoustic and RF modes, the docking station sends
to ensure stability, but RF mode enables high gain control for the first packet with a predefined initial transmission power. If
precise positioning in the short range. the received power level at the AUV is below a threshold
For the networked control system to implement docking ma- level due to fading, the AUV drops the message and it
neuver successfully, the docking station and the AUVs should calculates a transmission power level to compensate for the
communicate reliably. For this purpose, specific medium ac- channel and sends it to the docking station. The docking
cess control (MAC) schemes for the acoustic and RF modes station, increases its transmission power, so that reliable packet
have been designed for this hybrid underwater communication reception is guaranteed. For switching between acoustic and
and control system. In the acoustic mode of the proposed RF communication, our proposed system acts as follows:
framework, the frame time is divided into two periods, where When the AUVs are far from the docking station, they use
the first period is for the broadcast downstream channel from only the acoustic communication, and the RF link is off. The
the docking station to the AUVs, and the second period is for RF mode becomes active when an AUV sends a ”start RF”
the upstream channel shared by the AUVs, so that they can message as soon as it comes within a predetermined range of
send ”power control” or ”start RF” messages to the docking the docking station.
station. The collision-free TDMA scheme has been chosen
for the downstream acoustic channel, and three alternative IV. PERFORMANCE RESULTS
MAC protocols, namely TDMA, Slotted ALOHA and Waiting We have implemented our model in MATLAB Simulink
Room are considered for the upstream channel. For the RF and TrueTime, which is a hybrid systems simulator incor-
mode of the proposed framework, since the channel has high porating continuous domain dynamics, real-time system and
data rate and small propagation delay, we have chosen to use network simulation add-on for MATLAB. Table I represents
the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance the simulation parameters. In order to simulate the underwater
(CSMA/CA) type access for both downstream and upstream channels, the path loss models given in section II for acoustic
channels. For downstream channel, the docking station gets and RF links have been implemented. After path loss, Rayleigh
hold of the channel via CSMA/CA periodically, hence the fading is applied to obtain the instantaneous received power
downstream is contention free. Since only the AUV nodes level. The AUV is represented by a one degree of freedom
that are within short range of the docking station operate in double integrator.

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Fig. 3. Position of AUV w.r.t time. 

      
The approach of one AUV to the base station is shown in
Fig. 3. The goal is to reach 50m quickly with no overshoot
and steady state error despite varying head currents. During
the first 3 seconds, the AUV receives no messages from
the docking station and drifts away while transmitting power
messages. Control is applied from 3 to about 15 seconds
using the acoustic link with low gains. From about 18 seconds
onwards, RF communication is established with higher gains
providing a faster approach to the docking station. The gray
shaded area in the figure is called the ”cumulative error”,
which is calculated as the area between the reference position
(the line at 50m) and the AUV’s current position. From Fig.3
we can conclude that using RF links in close range give fast
and steady control. Time to doc, which denotes the time to
reach 2% of the target distance is measured as marked on this
figure.
Fig. 4 shows the time to dock performance, against in-
creasing head current strengths considering three MACs. It
can be seen that the time to dock for AUVs using acoustic
only system is 26 seconds when there is zero disturbance,
but as disturbance is strengthened, the AUVs do not reach
the docking station in 30 seconds, which means the AUV is
not able to overcome the head currents with the weak control
gains. The AUVs using the proposed Acoustic and RF hybrid
system, on the other hand, reach the docking station after 15
seconds. Although the time to dock increases with increasing
disturbance, even with the highest disturbance, we see that
the control gains can be set high enough without causing
instability. In comparison of MAC protocols, we observe that
TDMA is the most stable protocol providing the best time to
dock under increasing time dependent disturbance.
On our simulation platform, we have performed several
experiments to examine the proposed hybrid networked control
system in comparison to the acoustic only system, observing
cumulative error, communication energy, motive energy under
the effect of disturbance currents as well as different number
of AUVs. From the obtained results, we infer that the acoustic
and RF hybrid system outperforms the acoustic only system
in most performance metrics under increasing time dependent
and position dependent disturbance at the expense of higher
motive energy. For instance, we have observed that at low
disturbance values, communication energy spent by acoustic
and RF hybrid system is lower than that of acoustic only
system (up to 39% less), but at larger disturbance values,
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Fig. 4. Time to dock of AUV.
the hybrid systems spend more energy (up to 13.9% more)
in communication. To achieve the better steady state and
time to dock performance, the hybrid system spends up to
22.35% more motive energy than the acoustic only system.
We also infer that although in comparison of performances,
the three MAC protocols are similar to each other, S-ALOHA
and Waiting Room protocol perform slightly better under
increasing time dependent disturbance and increasing position
dependent disturbance respectively.
Currently, we are in the process of testing the proposed
hybrid framework in a continuous state physics simulation
where the underwater environment is realistically modeled.
V. CONCLUSION
In this work, we have developed a novel underwater acoustic
and radio frequency hybrid networked control system that
fulfills all requirements of an underwater docking maneuver
application and we have investigated its characteristics and
performance. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to
combine acoustic and RF communication links in underwater
environment for the control of an AUV system. For our
proposed model, we have performed various simulations to
observe the effects of disturbance caused by water currents
and different number of AUVs. We have shown that it is not
only possible, but more advantageous to use acoustic and RF
hybrid communication rather than acoustic only, for the control
of underwater AUV systems. We have observed that under
zero disturbance, the hybrid system takes 38.5% less time to
dock than acoustic only system and with increasing time and
position dependent disturbance, the hybrid system is able to
overcome head currents and reach the 2% error mark, while
the acoustic only system is unable to complete the docking
maneuver.
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