An Acoustic Communication Time Delays Compensation Approach for Master–Slave AUV Cooperative Navigation

Abstract

Time delay is a major problem in the acoustic communication technology. Considering such a background, a new dynamic model is proposed for an improved error estimation algorithm in this paper. And error propagation equations are constructed for an inertial navigation system/Doppler velocity log integrated navigation system. The time delay problem is reconsidered for acoustic communication with an ultra-short baseline acoustic positioning system that uses a multi-autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) cooperative navigation process in master–slave mode. The characteristics of time delays in acoustic communication are considered and the time delay is converted into a measurement bias within an observation equation for the slave AUV platform. Under the framework of a standard Kalman filter, an improved error estimation algorithm is presented to address the problem that occurs when random measurement bias exists in the dynamic linear system model. Based on the Monte Carlo method, the simulation results illustrate that compared with traditional methods, the error estimation algorithm proposed in this paper can effectively decrease positioning errors caused by time delays in acoustic communication.