Design and Implementation of a Peer-to-Peer Communication, Modular and Decentral YellowCube UUV

The underwater Unmanned Vehicles(UUVs) are pivot tools for offshore engineering and oceanographic research. Most existing UUVs do not facilitate easy integration of new or upgraded sensors. A solution to this problem is to have a modular UUV system with changeable payload sections capable of carrying different sensor to suite different missions. The design and implementation of a modular and decentral UUV named YellowCube is presented in the paper. Instead a centralised software architecture which is adopted by the other modular underwater vehicles designs, a Peer-To-Peer(P2P) communication mechanism is implemented among the UUV's modules. The experiments in the laboratory and sea trials have been executed to verify the performances of the UUV.