Target Tracking of an Underwater Glider Using a Small Unmanned Surface Vessel

Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology for target tracking of an underwater glider using an unmanned surface vessel (USV). The topside USV is assumed to have knowledge about the position of the underwater glider from an acoustic positioning system, which is exploited to track the planar motions of the submerged vehicle from the surface. We propose a target tracking method for the purpose of glider localization using unmanned systems to reduce the operational costs and potential hazards. A guidance law is implemented on the topside vehicle to track the submerged vehicle when the latter performs generic glider manoeuvres. A numerical simulation environment of the two vehicles is presented to validate the target-tracking scheme.