Collaborative Localization for Fleets of Underwater Drifters

A crucial goal for ocean-sensing systems is to obtain spatially-rich data that allows us to understand the correlations between ocean processes. To achieve this, we consider a system consisting of swarms of underwater drifters that float freely with currents and therefore achieve high spatial sampling of the ocean. Our goal is to ensure that this system is self-organizing and autonomous which is key for practical large-scale deployments in remote regions. We consider a crucial aspect of data collection, namely, determining the locations at which data was sensed. Given our overall design goal, we propose a localization strategy where nodes collaborate to determine their positions autonomously without using long range transponders on surface buoys or ships. This in turn significantly impacts the cost and ease of deployment of such systems. Further, we determine optimum configurations for the swarm so that their position estimation error is minimized.