Optimal motion controllers for an unmanned surface vehicle to track a maneuvering underwater target based on coarse range-bearing measurements

Abstract

This paper handles the situation in which an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) tracks a maneuvering underwater target (UT) based on coarse range-bearing measurements. Here, we consider an USV equipped with cheap sensors providing coarse range-bearing measurements of a maneuvering UT. As a method to improve the tracking effectiveness, this paper introduces the optimal motion controllers for the USV. The USV has motion constraints, such as the maximum turn rate. Moreover, bearing standard deviation may vary as the ship-relative bearing varies. As far as we know, the proposed motion controllers are unique in achieving following two goals simultaneously: 1. Considering both the USV's maximum turn rate and its bearing standard deviation, the USV approaches the UT while estimating the UT's location using coarse range-bearing measurements. 2. Avoid getting too close to obstacles. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified utilizing simulations.