Differential Pressure Speedometer for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

This paper presents the development of a prototype to estimate the velocity of an autonomous underwater vehicle. The prototype measures pressure differences on a semi-spherical nose of an underwater vehicle and uses the Bernoulli equation to estimate the velocity. The theoretical background, design, and implementation of the prototype are described, and the sensor’s performances are evaluated over experimental results. This work presents tests on surge and sway directions for velocities ranging from 0.05$ms^{-1}$ to 0.5 $ms^{-1}$. The results were compared with a ground-truth method, giving errors less than 4 % in surge and less than 10 % in sway at the higher velocities.