A Comparative Analysis of Maneuvering Strategies for Cooperative Range-based Localization

This paper explores maneuvering strategies for range-based cooperative localization between submerged marine elements without access to the sea surface. The undersea environment presents significant challenges to effective communication and navigation due to the rapid attenuation of electromagnetic signals. Acoustics presents a viable option for communication at the cost of reduced bandwidth and transmission speeds compared to standard communication and navigation signals on land. Range-based techniques utilizing a single transducer offer advantages over an array of transducers in cost and complexity. Still, they must overcome the need for bearing information through iterative range measurements converging on a reliable localization estimate. This task becomes more difficult in a cooperative navigation setting due to the assumption that elements within such a scheme are in constant relative motion. For our analysis, we assume two undersea vehicles communicate via acoustic modems to cooperatively navigate to a known target location. A ’leader’ vehicle equipped with superior navigation sensors supports a ’follower’ vehicle less equipped for self-localization. This work analyzes multiple maneuvering strategies for their impact on cooperative localization estimates, energy consumption, and how they translate to real-world environments and vehicle dynamics.