The nanoAUV’s brain is realized by the decision making module. This module determines the waypoints to points-of-interests which are passed to the trajectory planning software. The points are determined on the basis of measured gradients of the science sensors. Furthermore,the decision making continously monitors the state of all sensors, actuators and software modules and determines the current operation mode:
- Undocking: undocking from the TRIPLE-MoDo system of the melting probe and initialization of all GNC submodules
- Calibration-Mode: tracing of a circular trajectory around the melting probe to calibrate and test all submodules of the nanoAUV
- Cruise-Mode: traversing the water column to a certain point with the lowest possible energy consumption
- Science-Mode: continuous recording of scientific data at a point-of-interest
- Return: return to the melting probe in a defined safe area around the melting probe (near-field) where the TRIPLE-MoDo system can takes over
- Emergency-Return: return to melting probe in case of failure/fault of one or more systems, relying on fallback algorithms
- Docking – docking with the TRIPLE-MoDo system of the melting probe with the aid of a near-field navigation system (i.e. LED markers combined with camera tracking, …)