THE APPLICATION OF THE ACOUSTIC POSITIONING SYSTEM TO AID THE INERTIAL NAVIGATION SYSTEM

Abstract

During the submerging phase of operation, underwater vehicles rely mostly on inertial navigation system (INS) for positioning and navigating. The advantages of an INS are its autonomy and its independence from any other external sources of reference information. However, after a period of time, the accumulated error of the inertial navigation system tends to grow significantly and needs updating. This study focuses on a plan of constructing an acoustics station network for enhancing the position accuracy of underwater vehicles.