Integration of Communication, Positioning, Navigation and Timing for Deep-Sea Vehicles

Abstract

High-quality CPNT is a key technology for deep-sea vehicles that dive into the deep sea and for detecting and developing the deep sea. At present, however, CPNT services for deep-sea vehicles are provided by separate communication, positioning, and navigation systems as well as separate synchronous clocks (atomic clocks). This directly affects the operational efficiency, for example, update rates of up to 0.125 Hz, of deep-sea vehicles engaged in deep-sea scientific research, environmental investigation, and resource development. Therefore, a new design method and operating mode of CPNT is proposed herein to overcome the inherent flaws of the current communication/positioning/navigation modes of deep-sea vehicles; meet the actual demands of deep-sea vehicles in real time; achieve high update rates, low power consumption, and high precision positioning and navigation; and to be combined with the current development trends. The integration of CPNT can both unify time and space references, and reduce the difficulty of multi-sensor information fusion. Thus, the problems of poor navigation and the non-timing functions of deep-sea vehicles can be solved fundamentally. The integration of CPNT will improve the navigation and positioning accuracy as well as the information update rate (up to 1 Hz) of large deep-sea vehicles, such as deepsea human-occupied vehicles, deep-sea remotely operated underwater vehicles, and deep-sea autonomous underwater vehicles.