Real-Time Position and Attitude Estimation for Homing and Docking of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Based on Bionic Po
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Real-Time Position and Attitude Estimation for Homing and Docking of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Based on Bionic Polarized Optical Guidance CHENG Haoyuan, CHU Jinkui*, ZHANG Ran, GUI Xinyuan, and TIAN Lianbiao The Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Technology and System of Liaoning Province, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China (Received December 8, 2019; revised May 13, 2020; accepted May 18, 2020) © Ocean University of China, Science Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2020 Abstract As an important tool for marine exploration, the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) must home in and dock at a docking station (DS) to be recharged, repaired, or to exchange information at set intervals. However, the complex and hostile underwater environment makes this process challenging. This study proposes a real-time method based on polarized optical guidance for determining the position and attitude of the AUV relative to its DS. Four polarized artificial underwater landmarks are positioned at the DS, which are recognized by the AUV vision system. Compared with light intensity, the polarization of a light beam is known to be better maintained at greater propagation distances, especially in underwater environments. The proposed method, which is inspired by the ability of marine animals to communicate, calculates the pose parameters in less than 10 ms without any other navigational information. The simulation results reveal that the angle errors are small and the position errors are no more than 0.116 m within 100 m in the coastal ocean. The results of underwater experiments further demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, which extends the operating distance of the AUV beyond what is currently possible while maintaining the precision of traditional optical guidance. Key words
polarization; optical guidance; AUV; underwater docking; position and attitude estimation
1 Introduction As a powerful tool for ocean exploration and the development of sub-sea infrastructure, the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is playing an increasingly important role in military and scientific research. However, due to its limited operational hours, the AUV must be frequently recharged and relaunched and the complex and hostile underwater environment increases the difficulty of this process. Therefore, a reliable homing and docking technology is crucial for the AUV to be able to complete its missions. To determine its position and attitude relative to the docking station (DS), the AUV can be equipped with various sensors, i.e., acoustic, electromagnetic, and optical. Compared to other technologies, optical guidance has good directional accuracy, low vulnerability to external detection, and a diverse range of uses (Deltheil et al., 2002). The optical docking system provides a targeting accuracy on the order of 1 cm in real-life conditions, even in turbid bay waters (Cowen et al., 1997). However, its operating distance is limited because of the underwater conditions. Yu et al. (2001) proposed a navigation method for the
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