Sangam: A Confluence of Knowledge Streams

Cooperative localization for autonomous underwater vehicles

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dc.contributor John J. Leonard.
dc.contributor Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
dc.contributor Joint Program in Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering
dc.contributor Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
dc.contributor Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
dc.creator Bahr, Alexander
dc.date 2010-05-27T19:46:14Z
dc.date 2010-05-27T19:46:14Z
dc.date 2008
dc.date 2009
dc.date.accessioned 2023-03-01T07:22:58Z
dc.date.available 2023-03-01T07:22:58Z
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55326
dc.identifier 429909773
dc.identifier.uri http://localhost:8080/xmlui/handle/CUHPOERS/275830
dc.description Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Applied Ocean Science and Engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), February 2009.
dc.description Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-140).
dc.description Self-localization of an underwater vehicle is particularly challenging due to the absence of Global Positioning System (GPS) reception or features at known positions that could otherwise have been used for position computation. Thus Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) applications typically require the pre-deployment of a set of beacons.This thesis examines the scenario in which the members of a, group of AUVs exchange navigation information with one another so as to improve their individual position estimates. We describe how the underwater environment poses unique challenges to vehicle navigation not encountered in other environments in which robots operate and how cooperation can improve the performance of self-localization. As intra-vehicle communication is crucial to cooperation, we also address the constraints of the communication channel and the effect that these constraints have on the design of cooperation strategies. The classical approaches to underwater self-localization of a single vehicle, as well as more recently developed techniques are presented. We then examine how methods used for cooperating land-vehicles can be transferred to the underwater domain. An algorithm for distributed self-localization, which is designed to take the specific characteristics of the environment into account, is proposed. We also address how correlated position estimates of cooperating vehicles can lead to overconfidence in individual position estimates. Finally, key to any successful cooperative navigation strategy is the incorporation of the relative positioning between vehicles. The performance of localization algorithms with different geometries is analyzed and a distributed algorithm for the dynamic positioning of vehicles, which serve as dedicated navigation beacons for a fleet of AUVs, is proposed.
dc.description by Alexander Bahr.
dc.description Ph.D.
dc.format 140 p.
dc.format application/pdf
dc.language eng
dc.publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
dc.rights M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
dc.rights http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
dc.subject /Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Joint Program in Applied Ocean Science and Engineering.
dc.subject Mechanical Engineering.
dc.subject Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
dc.subject Vehicles, Remotely piloted
dc.subject Remote submersibles
dc.title Cooperative localization for autonomous underwater vehicles
dc.type Thesis


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