Signal absorption-based range estimator for undersea swarms

Robotic swarms are becoming increasingly complex on the surface and in air due to highspeed and reliable communication links, Global Positioning Satellites (GPS), and visual support to relative navigation. However, the limited propagation of these signals in the ocean has impacted similar advances in undersea robotics. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) often rely on acoustics to inform navigation solutions; however, this approach presents challenges for scalable robotic swarms. Acoustic navigation is a means to inform range and bearing to a target. Many methods for range and bearing estimation, including current low-cost solutions, rely on precision time synchronization or two-way communication to compute ranges as part of a full navigation solution. The high cost of reliable Chip-scale atomic clocks (CSACs) and acoustic modems relative to other vehicle components limits large-scale swarms due to the associated cost-per-vehicle and communications infrastructure.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• O'Neill, Brendan,Commander(Brendan William)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Erin Fischell and John Leonard.

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

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

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/1721.1/129031

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/129031