Passive localization of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle with periodic sonar signaling

As Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) play an increasingly important role in ocean community, localization of AUVs is attracting more and more attention in various applications. This paper presents a simple iterative solution to passive localization of an AUV which has a periodic sonar transmission. The method exploits the time difference of sonar transmissions and receiving interval measurements using a single linear array. Simulations show that the method yields an effective source location estimator without using a complex receiving array configuration; in the meantime, it can be readily implemented in a real-time system with moderate computational complexity.