An Empirical Evaluation of Co-ordination Strategies for an AUV and UAV

We propose a framework for cooperative search using a combination of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Such a combination allows search platforms to adapt to changes in both mission objectives and environmental parameters. We propose three strategies for coordination between an UAV and AUV to maximize the area explored while minimizing the idle time of the UAV and AUV. We evaluate the efficacy of these strategies while varying the speed, communication range and the number of targets. Preliminary results suggest the feasibility of our approach to combine UAVs and AUVs for effectively searching a given area.