Real-time acoustic source localization for autonomous navigation of underwater vehicles

This paper presents a method of acoustic source localization for the autonomous navigation of underwater vehicles. The proposed method is based on the time delay of acoustic signals received by two hydrophones. A probabilistic estimation is used to determine an accurate time delay. The time delay is estimated by using a Bayesian update process, and the direction of the acoustic source is obtained from the estimated time delay. Acoustic source localization is accomplished by accumulating direction information from various vehicle locations. Using extended Kalman filter, the location of the acoustic source is estimated recursively. The proposed method can provide a reliable estimation of the direction and location of the acoustic source, even under for a noisy acoustic signal. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed acoustic source localization method in a real sea environment.