Low Power Intelligent Sonars for AUV Navigation and Collision Avoidance

Traditional approaches to AUV collision avoidance involve the adaptation of COTS electronic scanning sonars that have been designed for applications where low power is not a consideration. This has an adverse impact on the endurance and performance of the AUV. The navigation and obstacle avoidance processing is typically performed by the vehicle control processor, acting on large volumes of data fed at high speed from the sonar. This results in a heavy burden on the AUV control processor. A novel approach to the sonar is described which addresses both of these issues. The sonar used achieves power consumption figures that are an order of magnitude less than typical sonars fitted to AUVs. The sonar also uses its own DSP to perform the data analysis functions, thus reducing the processing burden on the vehicle computer and allowing the use of a low speed serial link between the sonar and the AUV. Copyright ® 2003 UDT Europe.