ULTRA: Underwater Localization for Transit and Reconnaissance Autonomy

Huntsberger, Terrance L.

This software addresses the issue of underwater localization of unmanned vehicles and the inherent drift in their onboard sensors. The software gives a 2 to 3 factor of improvement over the state-of-the-art underwater localization algorithms. The software determines the localization (position, heading) of an AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) in environments where there is no GPS signal. It accomplishes this using only the commanded position, onboard gyros/accelerometers, and the bathymetry of the bottom provided by an onboard sonar system. The software does not rely on an onboard bathymetry dataset, but instead incrementally determines the position of the AUV while mapping the bottom. In order to enable long-distance underwater navigation by AUVs, a localization method called ULTRA uses registration of the bathymetry data products produced by the onboard forward-looking sonar system for hazard avoidance during a transit to derive the motion and pose of the AUV in order to correct the DR (dead reckoning) estimates. The registration algorithm uses iterative point matching (IPM) combined with surface interpolation of the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm. This method was used previously at JPL for onboard unmanned ground vehicle localization, and has been optimized for efficient computational and memory use.

Document ID

20130014142

Acquisition Source

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Document Type

Other - NASA Tech Brief

External Source(s)

http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/16760

Authors

Date Acquired

August 27, 2013

Publication Date

July 1, 2013

Publication Information

Publication: NASA Tech Briefs, July 2013

Subject Category

Report/Patent Number

Distribution Limits

Public

Public Use Permitted.

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