Estimating position and orientation of an underwater vehicle based on correlated sensor data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8965682-B2
Application number	US-201113280536-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 25, 2011
Priority date	Oct 25, 2010
Publication date	Feb 24, 2015
Grant date	Feb 24, 2015

Abstract

A method and system are described that can be used for combining two sources of position and orientation (pose) information where the information from one source is correlated with the information from the other and the sources produce information at differing rates. For example, the method and system allow for estimating position and orientation (pose) of an underwater vehicle relative to underwater structures by combining pose information computed from a 3 D imaging sonar with pose information from a vehicle navigation system. To combine the information from the two sources, a determination is made as to whether to generate a forward prediction of the pose estimate of one of the sources relative to the other, and generating the forward prediction if needed. An updated pose of the underwater vehicle is determined based on the fused pose estimate, and which is used for vehicle guidance and control.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of estimating position and orientation of an underwater vehicle comprising:
receiving, by a processor, pose data from one source, the one source being a vehicle navigation system;
receiving, by a processor, pose data from another source being an image sensor-base source different from the vehicle navigation system;
determining a fused pose estimate using a processor, the determining comprising determining a forward prediction of the pose d…

Assignees

• Tangirala Sekhar C
• Feldman I Walter K
• Debrunner Christian H
• Lockheed Corp

Inventors

• Tangirala Sekhar C
• Feldman I Walter K
• Debrunner Christian H

Classifications

• G01C21/1656

  Physics · mapped topic

• G01C21/005 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic