An Ultra-Short Baseline Positioning Model Based on Rotating Array & Reusing Elements and Its Error Analysis.

The USBL (Ultra-Short Base Line) positioning system is widely used in underwater acoustic positioning systems due to its small size and ease of use. The traditional USBL positioning system is based on 'slant range and azimuth'. The positioning error is an increasing function with the increase in distance and the positioning accuracy depends on the ranging accuracy of the underwater target. This method is not suitable for long-distance underwater positioning operations. This paper proposes a USBL positioning calculation model based on depth information for 'rotating array and reusing elements'. This method does not need to measure the distance between the USBL acoustic array and target, so it can completely eliminate the influence of long-distance ranging errors in USBL positioning. The theoretical analysis and simulation experiments show that the new USBL positioning model based on 'rotating array and reusing elements' can completely eliminate the influence of the wavelength error and spacing error of underwater acoustic signals on the positioning accuracy of USBL. The positioning accuracy can be improved by approximately 90%, and the horizontal positioning error within a positioning distance of 1000 m is less than 1.2 m. The positioning method has high precision performance in the long distance, and provides a new idea for the engineering design of a USBL underwater positioning system.

A misalignment angle error calibration method of underwater acoustic array in strapdown inertial navigation system/ultrashort baseline integrated navigation system based on single transponder mode.

The angle misalignment error of a USBL (Ultrashort Baseline) acoustic array is one of the major error sources of the strapdown inertial navigation system/USBL positioning system, which will directly affect the positioning accuracy of the USBL positioning system. For the traditional calibration method cannot accurately estimate the angle misalignment error due to its strict trajectory requirements in the field experiment and the high-precision layout of the transceiver array elements, a new method for estimating the angle misalignment error of a USBL acoustic array based on single transponder and dual-vector reconstruction is studied in this paper. The precondition of USBL misalignment calibration is to locate the underwater transponder accurately. In this paper, the single transponder segmentation iterative long baseline method is used to locate the underwater target transponder. The dual-vector reconstruction method is studied to control the estimation accuracy of USBL misalignment error calibration based on the traditional single transponder method, which provides a theoretical basis for the determination of the iteration times to the USBL angle misalignment error estimation module. The underwater experiment results show that the positioning error could be reduced to less than 1 m after the angle misalignment error compensation. The underwater transponder positioning and the angle misalignment error estimation of USBL could be accomplished in a circle sailing. It is a new method with good performance of high estimation accuracy, simple operation, and easy realization.