Cooperative localization for AUV using range and bearing measurements

A cooperative localization algorithm for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) based on range and bearing measurements was proposed, where the master AUV was equipped with a rather high precision inertial measurement unit (IMU), while the slave AUV was equipped with a low precision IMU and its position was estimated by collecting the IMU measurements information from maser AUV and fusing these measurements with relative rang and bearing measurements taken in its sensor range. Then Extend Kalman Filter was used to estimate the system state and realize localization. In order to better understand the advantages of this method, we compared it with IMU-only as well as range-only measurement fusing localization results. Simulation results show our proposed method can effectively and stably estimate the navigation states and realize high precision positioning. Finally the nonlinear observability analysis was performed to support the improved performance of cooperative navigation system.