An augmented reality architecture for the creation of hardware-in-the-loop & hybrid simulation test scenarios for unmanned underwater vehicles

System evaluation and testing of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) in their destined environment can be tedious, error prone, time consuming and consequently, expensive. However, pre-real world testing facilities, such as Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), are not always available. This is due to the time and expense required to create a specific test environment for the vehicle. Thus the system is not as fault tolerant as it could be since problems can remain undetected until the real-world testing phase. Debugging and fixing errors in the real-world testing phase is much more time consuming and expensive due to the nature of the harsh underwater environment. This paper introduces a novel framework for the rapid construction of virtual environment testing scenarios for remote platforms with embedded systems such as AUVs. The framework provides testing facilities across all stages of the reality continuum providing capabilities for pure simulation, HIL, Hybrid Simulation (HS) and Real world testing. The framework architecture is both very generic and flexible and allows mixing of real and simulated components. The framework is supported by a distributed communications protocol to provide location transparency of systems which is key to providing mixed reality testing facilities. ©2007 MTS.