Implementation of underwater precise navigation system for a remotely operated mine disposal vehicle

This paper describes the implementation of a precise underwater navigation solution using a multiple sensor fusion technique based on USBL, GPS, DVL and AHRS measurements for the operation of a remotely operated mine disposal vehicle (MDV). The estimation of accurate 6DOF positions and attitudes is the key factor in executing dangerous and complicated missions. To implement the precise underwater navigation, two strategies are chosen in this paper. Firstly, the sensor frame alignment to the body frame is conducted to enhance the performance of a standalone dead-reckoning algorithm. Secondly, absolute position data measured by USBL is fused to prevent cumulative integration error. The heading alignment error is identified by comparing the measured absolute positions with the DR algorithm results. The performance of the developed approach is evaluated with the experimental data acquired by MDV in the South-sea trial.