An integrated position, attitude and heading solution for seafloor mapping with multibeam sonars

This paper describes the Position and Orientation System for Marine Vessels (POS/MV) and its application to seafloor mapping with multibeam sonars. Multibeam sonars offer the potential for highly cost-effective quantitative hydrographic survey to IHO standards, but have to date been limited in efficiency by roll/pitch/heave motion sensors. Other obstacles to full survey efficiency include GPS outages. POS/MV incorporates tightly coupled inertial/GPS integration technology transferred from military aircraft navigation systems to provide highly accurate position and 3-axis orientation data for multibeam sonar motion compensation and sonar data geocoding. POS/MV replaces the motion sensor, GPS receiver and gyrocompass that are normally found on a survey vessel to provide a complete solution for multibeam sonars