Towards AUV Route Following Using Qualitative Navigation

We present a novel approach to the guidance of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) along a trained route. The introduced system employs a topological route representation based on storing a sequence of side-scan sonar images captured along the route. When in following mode, image registration techniques provide the vehicle with a real-time estimate of the direction of its displacement relative to the trained route. This simplified approach to navigation sidesteps the problems inherent with maintaining a vehicle pose estimate within a global reference system, thereby allowing the vehicle to traverse a trained route without resorting to external navigation aides (e.g. GPS). Simulation results are provided which validate the proof of concept for our approach.