Cooperative localization for Multi-UUVs based on time-of-flight of acoustic signal

The research on cooperative navigation and localization of multi-UUVs is an important topic to solve the navigation problem in middle-depth-zone. An algorithm based on time of flight of acoustic signal for multi-UUVs was presented. In the leader-fellow structure, the master UUV is equipped with high precision navigation system, and the slave UUV is equipped with low cost navigation sensors. They all are equipped with acoustic device to measure relative location. An extended Kalman filter was designed, which fused the proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensors, to locate the slave UUV in real time. The researched results show that the navigation accuracy is improved effectively by using the cooperative navigation and localization method.