Embedded Imaging Sonar Simulator for AUV Localisation

This paper presents the new RTAC acoustic simulator aimed at embedded use on low power GPUs. The purpose of this simulator is to be used for relocalisation tasks based on front scan sonars for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles in already mapped environments. Relocalisation is to be achieved by registration of the real and estimated sonar images. The RTAC simulator is implemented using the CUDA programming model for a deployment on NVIDIA Jetson. Geometrical accuracy of the simulator was tested by comparing simulated sonar image with their real counterpart acquired in natural environnements. To simulate comparable sonar images, the environment map used in the simulator was generated by a photogrammetry software from optical images acquired at the same location at the sonar images. Results show good geometrical consistency between the real and simulated sonar images and the simulator is able to compute one frame per second on a Jetson TX2 module which is enough for relocalisation purposes.