Side scan sonar based onboard SLAM system for autonomous underwater vehicles

Abstract

The paper describes a Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) system suitable for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with a dead reckoning system and a side scan sonar (SSS). The system was developed with the intention to compensate position drifts of an AUV navigation system during a mission. The processing chain consists of an automatic landmark detector, an automatic data association module and the SLAM filter. This paper presents results showing that our onboard SLAM approach successfully reduces navigational drifts.