An Inexpensive Acoustic Positioning System for Low-Cost Shallow Water AUV Operation

Abstract

Accurate localization of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is fundamental to navigation accuracy, and robust control which leads to an overall success of vehicles’ mission. Conventional positioning systems are expensive and cannot be implemented for lightweight/budget AUV systems. This paper describes the design and performance of an inexpensive acoustic positioning system (APS) used to guide the mission strategy of a lightweight AUV (KYUBIC) for the Underwater Robotics Competition in Okinawa. Using Position and Thrust control strategy, the AUV velocity is used for self-positioning estimation, and this is calculated from the equation of motion without integrating the acceleration. The acoustic positioning method is based on Supershort baseline (SSBL) principle comprising of 2 self-made hydrophone module using MEMS microphone. Our competition strategy searches and locates the position of a submerged Pinger using detection and angle estimates that are integrated for dynamic control of the AUV. Performance analysis show that the controller and low-cost acoustic system can search and localize at Pinger position within the accepted boundary.