High Accuracy Navigation Systems for Low Power UUVs

Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) are used by the Navy for mine reconnaissance, sea floor mapping, and to aid in the detection of submarines. They commonly use underwater acoustic positioning to navigate undersea, but this technology requires the presence of fixed position transponders. Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) provide an alternative navigation solution that uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) and dead reckoning to eliminate the external fixed transponders from the system. High accuracy INS systems are expensive, large, and power hungry. While they can be used in large UUVs, they are not suited for small, low power UUVs due to the available space and power. The Navy is requesting a miniature, low power, low cost, high accuracy inertial navigation system (INS) that can enable low power UUVs to navigate in littoral environments. Cybernet Systems Corporation is proposing a solution to the UUV navigation problem using multiple, self calibrating Micro-Electro-Mechanical (MEMS) sensors based on our current Inertial Measurement and Magnetometer Module (I3M) technology. The system will use known constant inertial movements to continuously keep the device calibrated and use the redundant measurements to overcome the drift and accuracy issues that have plagued inertial MEMS in the past.