Cooperative Autonomous Underwater Vehicle localization

Due to some communication constraints of the underwater environment, cooperative localization for AUVs is a hard task. In this paper, we present the state of the art in this area, analyse the existing solutions to related problems and propose 2 algorithms, based on the EKF, to solve the localization problem with a group of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles equipped with low cost navigation systems in an unknown environment. Without the aid of a global positioning system, the navigation error will grow unbounded. However, navigation performance can be greatly improved with our cooperative navigation scheme, as shown in simulations. We also show that the methods give better results when compared to an existing solution and perform a nonlinear observability analysis of the system to show the boundedness of the error with the aid of a global positioning system.