Goal reasoning for autonomous underwater vehicles: Responding to unexpected agents

We describe preliminary work toward applying a goal reasoning agent for controlling an underwater vehicle in a partially observable, dynamic environment. In preparation for upcoming at-sea tests, our investigation focuses on a notional scenario wherein a autonomous underwater vehicle pursuing a survey goal unexpectedly detects the presence of a potentially hostile surface vessel. Simulations suggest that Goal Driven Autonomy can successfully reason about this scenario using only the limited computational resources typically available on underwater robotic platforms.