Sea Trial Validation of the ROS-DESERT Middleware with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Cosimo, Davide, Costa, Davide, Costanzi, Riccardo, Campagnaro, Filippo, Caiti, Andrea, Zorzi, Michele
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866910247802634240
author Cosimo, Davide
Costa, Davide
Costanzi, Riccardo
Campagnaro, Filippo
Caiti, Andrea
Zorzi, Michele
author_facet Cosimo, Davide
Costa, Davide
Costanzi, Riccardo
Campagnaro, Filippo
Caiti, Andrea
Zorzi, Michele
contents This paper presents a modular software architecture that enables environmental-aware coordination of heterogeneous Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to improve underwater acoustic connectivity. The architecture combines a Robot Operating System 2 application layer with the DESERT Underwater communication framework through the rmw_desert middleware, and integrates a Robot Operating System 1 bridge to ensure interoperability with legacy vehicle front-seat controllers. This design enables fine-grained, cross-layer configurability of the communication stack and supports onboard processing of environmental measurements to inform adaptive communication behaviors. As a representative use case, this architecture is used to implement a lightweight depth-optimization strategy that exploits environmental awareness and AUV mobility to improve acoustic link performance. The complete software stack is validated through sea trials conducted off the Gulf of La Spezia in littoral water with an average depth of approximately 100m using a deployment involving three AUVs with distinct operational roles. Experimental results indicate that depth-adaptive repositioning yields measurable gains in packet reception at horizontal separation of approximately 1km, while differences are negligible at shorter ranges where the received signal energy remains above demodulation thresholds. Beyond link-level performance the sea trials confirm the feasibility, modularity, and practical deployability of the proposed architecture on existing AUV platforms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_23553
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sea Trial Validation of the ROS-DESERT Middleware with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
Cosimo, Davide
Costa, Davide
Costanzi, Riccardo
Campagnaro, Filippo
Caiti, Andrea
Zorzi, Michele
Networking and Internet Architecture
This paper presents a modular software architecture that enables environmental-aware coordination of heterogeneous Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to improve underwater acoustic connectivity. The architecture combines a Robot Operating System 2 application layer with the DESERT Underwater communication framework through the rmw_desert middleware, and integrates a Robot Operating System 1 bridge to ensure interoperability with legacy vehicle front-seat controllers. This design enables fine-grained, cross-layer configurability of the communication stack and supports onboard processing of environmental measurements to inform adaptive communication behaviors. As a representative use case, this architecture is used to implement a lightweight depth-optimization strategy that exploits environmental awareness and AUV mobility to improve acoustic link performance. The complete software stack is validated through sea trials conducted off the Gulf of La Spezia in littoral water with an average depth of approximately 100m using a deployment involving three AUVs with distinct operational roles. Experimental results indicate that depth-adaptive repositioning yields measurable gains in packet reception at horizontal separation of approximately 1km, while differences are negligible at shorter ranges where the received signal energy remains above demodulation thresholds. Beyond link-level performance the sea trials confirm the feasibility, modularity, and practical deployability of the proposed architecture on existing AUV platforms.
title Sea Trial Validation of the ROS-DESERT Middleware with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23553