Model-driven analysis and design for software development of autonomous underwater vehicles

Software engineering plays a key role in state-of-the-art robots where more effective and efficient software development solutions are basically needed for implementation and integration of advanced robotics capabilities. Component-based software engineering and model-driven software development are two paradigms suitable to deal with such demand. This paper presents the analysis, design, and implementation of control software for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). The software development stages are carried out using a toolchain based on the two development engineering methodologies mentioned above. A case study of a highperformance AUV control application and experimental results from a software schedulability analysis are presented.