The extraction of topographic features in support of autonomous underwater vehicle navigation

We describe in an expository manner ongoing research concerned with the identification and extraction of topographic features relevant to automated navigation algorithms for an autonomous underwater vehicle. These features are presented within the framework of the extremal point topography network (EPTN), an idea going back to Arthur Cayley and J. Clerk Maxwell. The computational problems addressed here are the reconstruction of the surface terrain from irregular spaced bathymetric data and the subsequent extraction of the EPTN. While clearly no single best method exists for this latter step, we present here a description of several methods we have tried with some success. The data used for this research is that for a selected area of Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.