Delayed state information filter for USBL-Aided AUV navigation

This paper presents a navigation system for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) which merges standard dead reckoning navigation data with absolute position fixes from an Ultra-Short Base Line (USBL) system. Traditionally, the USBL transceiver is located on the surface, which makes necessary to feed the position fixes back to the AUV by means of an acoustic modem. An Information filter, which maintains a bounded circular buffer of past vehicle poses, is in charge of the sensor data fusion while dealing with the delays induced by the acoustic communication. The method is validated using a data set gathered for a dam inspection task.