Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are becoming increasingly widespread in today's industrialised world, with research shifting towards cooperative control between multiple vehicles. Cooperative control between AUVs poses a number of challenges such as collision-avoidance, path-planning and group formation. This paper presents a novel 3D technique for the purposes of inspecting underwater structures using autonomous vehicles. Vehicles are navigated using a combination of traditional artificial potential fields (APFs) and rotational potential fields (RPFs) which are employed using 2D sub-planes in a concertina effect to provide full boundary coverage and inspection of submerged architectures. Vehicles are freed from the usual angular constraints associated with group strategies whilst moving in a fluid formation, reducing computational load. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the technique on two different-sized structures, providing varying customised levels of inspection and successful collision-free journeys throughout with minimal path length. © 2017, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR). All rights reserved.