Collaborative mapping with autonomous underwater vehicles in low-bandwidth conditions

This paper presents a survey and mapping strategy developed and simulated at the University of Idaho (UI). The UI mapping strategy utilizes low-bandwidth acoustic communication to populate and maintain a distributed representation of the search area among a small fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles. Using available acoustic communications, the individual vehicles create a multi-level representation of the search area. A low-resolution map contains information about the positions of other vehicles in the fleet, estimated coverage of the search area, low-resolution mine-like object (MLO) locations, and potentially dangerous areas for the autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). A high-resolution map contains significantly more accurate location estimates for MLO contacts. Maintenance of such a map of the search area enables certain advanced behaviors by the fleet of AUVs, as well as ensuring redundancy in the storage of important information; this redundancy provides assurance that, even if a vehicle were to be lost during a mission, much of the data obtained by that AUV would still be recoverable. These improvements allow for the more efficient and reliable conduct of autonomous mine countermeasure (MCM) missions.