The paper highlights some approaches to fundamental problems of intelligent control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) groups: logic-based approach to task management for inspection and protection of the water area, discrete-event approach to decentralized prioritized distribution of AUVs, hybrid evolutionary models and algorithms for dynamic mission planning, and methods for rigorous analysis of discrete-continuous models of AUVs formations. Hierarchical three-level architecture of control system is supposed and various models of AUV group functioning at the different control levels are considered.