Coordinated tracking and interception of an acoustic target using autonomous surface vehicles

In today's highly advanced society, more industries are beginning to turn to autonomous vehicles to reduce costs and improve safety. One industry in particular is the defense industry. By using unmanned and autonomous vehicles, the military and intelligence communities are able to complete missions without putting personnel in harm's way. A particularly important area of research is in the use of marine vehicles to autonomously and adaptively track a target of interest in situ by passive sonar only. Environmental factors play a large role in how sound propagates in the ocean, and so the vehicle must be able to adapt based on its surrounding environment to optimize acoustic track on a contact. This thesis examines the use of autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) to not only autonomously detect and localize a contact of interest, but also to conduct follow-on long-term tracking and interception of the target, by using anticipated environmental conditions to motivate its decisions regarding optimum tracking range and speed. This thesis contributes a simulated and theoretical approach to using an ASV to maximize signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) while tracking a contact autonomously. Additionally, this thesis demonstrates a theoretical approach to using information from a collaborating autonomous vehicle to assist in autonomously intercepting a target.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Joint Program in Applied Ocean Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Conway, Ryan Lee.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Erin Fischell.

• Joint Program in Applied Ocean Science and Engineering.
• Mechanical Engineering.
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/124071

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/124071