A method of state estimation for underwater vehicle navigation around a cylindrical structure

Abstract

Recently, increasing efforts have been focused on the development and adoption of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for various applications. However, the GPS signals are usually unavailable, the vehicle dynamics is very uncertain, and the complicated vision based localization algorithms may not work well in the underwater environments. Hence, accurate and timely state estimation using low-cost sensors remains a challenge for the control and navigation of AUVs. This paper considers the state estimation problem for underwater vehicle navigation around a cylindrical structure. The vehicle is assumed to be equipped with only low-cost sensors: an inertia measurement unit (IMU), a pressure sensor and a monocular camera. By exploiting the prior knowledge on the size and shape of the structure, an efficient algorithm for estimating the state of the AUV is developed without using any dynamic model. Firstly, a state observer is proposed under the condition that the localization result (rotational and translational position) is available. Next, we present a method for localization based on the IMU readings, pressure sensor readings and the image of the cylindrical structure, which uses the geometry of the structure and only requires simple image processing (line extraction). Then we prove that the proposed observer is globally stable. Preliminary experimental results and simulation results are reasonable and promising, which implies the proposed method has potential to be used in the real AUV navigation applications.