An Underwater Integrated Navigation Method for Small Autonomous Surface and Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

In order to realize low-cost operation in narrow and small waters, a new type of small autonomous surface and underwater vehicle (S-ASUV) is proposed, which has four vertical propellers controlling attitude and two horizontal propellers controlling position. The kinematic and dynamic models of S-ASUV are established, and the thrust coefficient of the models is corrected by global positioning system (GPS) position calibration. An underwater navigation fusion algorithm aided by the thrust correction dynamic model is proposed. The underwater GPS navigation experiment was carried out by using the S-ASUV prototype, and the underwater integrated navigation algorithm under GPS outliers was simulated offline using the track data collected from the field experiment. The results show that the thrust correction dynamic model aided underwater navigation method can effectively improve the accuracy of underwater navigation.