Towards AUV Passive Localization and Navigation

This paper addresses the potential for using signals of opportunity within an underwater harbor-like environment for AUV localization and navigation using only a passive acoustic sensor together with a overhead map. It presents passive acoustic data collected in Monterey harbor, CA and demonstrates how the sensor data can be used to estimate bearing and how the combination of bearing measurements and stochastic assumptions about the signal’s origins can be used as input into a SLAM algorithm for position localization.