2A1-A11 Navigation method of an AUV for detailed seafloor mapping : Large-area photomosaicing of Tagiri vent field, Kagoshima Bay

Abstract

This paper proposes an innovative method to navigate an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for detailed visual seafloor mapping with high positioning accuracy without using any vision-based matching. The method consists of three parts, SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping), path-planning and terrain tracking. The method was implemented in the AUV Tri-Dog 1 and a series of experiments were carried out at Tagiri vent field, Kagoshima bay in Japan. The AUV succeeded in observation of interesting features of the field including bubble plumes, bacteria mats and tube-worm colonies through 12 fully autonomous dives, totaling 29 hours duration. Finally a photomosaic covering about 3,000 square meters was created.