Synthetic baseline navigation using phase-coherent acoustic communication signals

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146(6), (2019): 4831, doi: 10.1121/1.5137902.The development of a synthetic baseline navigation technique that self-localizes an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) using intermittent acoustic communications signals received by a single transducer is described, along with field results from in-ocean tests. The method uses the phase measurement at the output of a second-order phase-locked loop to create fine-scale pseudorange estimates in addition to, or in the absence of, a one-way travel time measurement based on the arrival time of the acoustic data packet. These range measurements are incorporated by an adaptive particle filter. This technique allows the vehicle navigation system to take advantage of multiple phase-derived range measurements made over the duration of a communication packet. These measurements, when incorporated with an appropriate filter and vehicle kinematic model, improve vehicle navigation at no additional cost in navigation-specific acoustic transmissions. This approach was demonstrated and evaluated with data collected at-sea using a REMUS 100 AUV (Hydroid, Inc., Pocasset, MA).The authors wish to thank R. Hess, A. Nager, and N. Caruthers with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for their efforts with vehicle integration and operation, and S. Singh, Dr. J. Partan, and R. Stokey at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for their assistance with the acoustic modem system and REMUS vehicle. T. Schrameck and Dr. S. Merrifield at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography are thanked for providing feedback on this manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research under Contract No. N00014-12-G-0136 and in part by the Friedkin Foundation. The work of E.G. was also supported in part by the Department of Defense (DoD) through the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) Program.2020-06-3