Precision autonomous underwater navigation

Deep-sea archaeology, an emerging application of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology, requires precise navigation and guidance. As science requirements and engineering capabilities converge, navigating in the sensor-limited ocean remains a fundamental challenge. Despite the logistical cost, the standards of archaeological survey necessitate using fixed acoustic transponders - an instrumented navigation environment. This thesis focuses on the problems particular to operating precisely within such an environment by developing a design method and a navigation algorithm. Responsible documentation, through remote sensing images, distinguishes archaeology from salvage, and fine-resolution imaging demands precision navigation. This thesis presents a design process for making component and algorithm level tradeoffs to achieve system-level performance satisfying the archaeological standard. A specification connects the functional requirements of archaeological survey with the design parameters of precision navigation. Tools based on estimation fundamentals - the Cram6r-Rao lower bound and the extended Kalman filter - predict the system-level precision of candidate designs. Non-dimensional performance metrics generalize the analysis results. Analyzing a variety of factors and levels articulates the key tradeoffs: sensor selection, acoustic beacon configuration, algorithm selection, etc. The abstract analysis is made concrete by designing a survey and navigation system for an expedition to image the USS Monitor. Hypothesis grid (Hgrid) is both a representation of the sensed environment and an algorithm for building the representation. Range observations measuring the line-of-sight distance between two acoustic transducers are subject to multipath errors and spurious returns.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Bingham, Brian S. (Brian Steven), 1973-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Warren P. Seering, David A. Mindell and Dana R. Yoerger.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

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

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29629

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29629