Simultaneous Mapping and Localisation for Small Military Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

Paper proposes a simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) scheme which is applicable to small military unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). The SLAM is a process which enables concurrent estimation of the position of UUV and landmarks in the environment through which the vehicle is passing. An unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is utilised to develop a SLAM suitable to nonlinear motion of UUV. A range sonar is used as a sensor to collect the relative position information of the landmark in the environment in which the UUV is navigating. The proposed SLAM scheme was validated through towing tank experiments about two degrees of freedom motion with UUV motion simulator and real range sonar system for small UUV. The results of these experiments showed that proposed SLAM scheme is capable of estimating the position of the UUV and the surrounding objects under real underwater environment.Defence Science Journal, 2012, 62(4), pp.223-227, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.62.1002