Automated mission code translation across different UMV types

There is a significant variety in the many different Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) in use today, specifically in the programming languages required to create missions for these vehicles. Programming languages for UUVs can range anywhere from low level basic behavior commands (similar to assembly language instructions) to higher level UUV programming languages that have constructs similar to most general purpose high-level programming languages (e.g., Java and C++). Regardless of the type of UUV language used (i.e., low-level versus a high-level), UUV languages contain commands to control a vehicle's movement, manipulate any onboard devices (e.g., sensors), and monitor the state of the vehicle. Translation of a mission specified for one UUV to another is a non-trivial task. Such a translation from a mission in one mission-control- language to another assumes even more significance with the advent of missions involving different types of UUVs cooperating to achieve a common goal. It would be useful to transfer part of an incomplete mission from one UUV to another of a different type in the event of failure or other unforseen predicaments. This paper presents a novel translation scheme to translate missions specified in one mission control language into another. This is accomplished by organizing different mission control languages (along with their commands and behaviors) into a hierarchy and travesing this hierarchy allows for the translation between these languages.