Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Localization Using Sound Measurements of Passing Ships

Abstract

This paper introduces the localization method of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) in environments (such as harbors or ports) where there can be passing ships near the AUV. It is assumed that the AUV can access the trajectory and approximate source level of a passing ship, while identifying the ship by processing the ship’s sound. This paper considers an AUV which can localize itself by integrating propeller and Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). Suppose that the AUV has been moving in underwater environments for a long time, under the IMU-only localization. To fix long-term drift in the IMU-only localization, we propose that the AUV localization uses sound measurements of passing ships whose trajectories are known a priori. As far as we know, this AUV localization method is novel in using sound measurements of passing ships of which the trajectories are known a priori. The performance of the proposed localization method is verified utilizing MATLAB simulations. The simulation results show significant estimation improvements, compared to IMU-only localization. Moreover, using measurements from multiple ships gives better estimation results, compared to the case where the measurement of a single ship is used.