Motion estimation and modeling of the environment for underwater vehicles

The problem of localizing an underwater vehicle in a structured environment using sonar returns and measured acceleration is addressed. In particular the environment is modeled as a sequence of segments with constant orientation. The combined estimation of the vehicle motion and the orientation of the segments is obtained using an extended Kalman filter based on a suitable state-space model. Several experiments in the test tank show the effectiveness of' this technique.Dr. Teresa McMullen, Office of Naval Researc