TerrLab ¿ a generic simulation and post-processing tool for terrain referenced navigation

Abstract

One of the challenges in underwater navigation for autonomous vehicles is to get position updates for the navigation system. For deep water applications or operations requiring a high degree of covertness, surfacing for GPS is not a solution. The conventional submerged position update techniques, like DGPS-USBL or LBL, requires external physical infrastructure in the operation area of the vehicle. Terrain referenced navigation is a promising technique for submerged position updates. It requires only a bathymetric map of the operation area and the use of a bathymetric sensor during the operation. Different algorithms for terrain referenced navigation have already successfully been tested for underwater applications. These algorithms include variants of the original TERCOM, different Kalman filter based techniques and non-linear Bayesian estimators like the point mass filter and particle filters. To asses the performance of the different algorithms and their robustness on both real and simulated data, FFI has developed a tool called TerrLab. The tool was originally used to qualify algorithms for the real-time terrain navigation system for the HUGIN AUVs. It is now also used to test different sensor and DTM error models for the algorithms.

Review of AUV Underwater Terrain Matching Navigation

“…During the trial, the multi-beam sonar used for bathymetry was suddenly broken, so the Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) was temporarily used for bathymetry measurement. After five hours' underwater sailing, the error compared to the GPS signal was about 5 m (Anonsen and Hagen, 2010; Anonsen et al, 2007; Hagen et al, 2010; Anonsen and Hagen, 2009; Hagen, 2006; Hagen and Anonsen, 2014). FFI has researched the UTMN for many years, and thus produced many important references.…”

Making AUVs Truly Autonomous

“…8. The contour lines of the PMF's probability density function (left) and the particle filter cloud (right) after processing 9 pings from a DVL with the tool TerrLab (Hagen, 2006). Red line is a priori navigation solution, black line is true position and cyan marks position estimates from the terrain navigation algorithms.…”

ASTROLABE: A Rigorous, Geodetic-Oriented Data Model for Trajectory Determination Systems

“…Generally speaking and surprisingly to some extent, the literature on navigation and orientation, either in broad general surveys like [25] or even for specific generic systems like [26,27] or [28] do not tackle generic interfaces. It has been only recently, that the design of plug-and-play systems has made apparent the need for generic interfaces; automation-e.g., in robotics-and harmonisation-e.g., large organisations-are drivers of this.…”