Sonar based tracking system

This paper describes the system designed to detect and track underwater vehicles wchich are leaders in swarm scenarios. The main role of the system is to provide to the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) the current relative position of the tracked object and to return bearing and distance to it. The system for imaging the environment around the AUV uses the Micron Tritech MK4 sonar which acquires reflection values of acoustic signals from objects in sonar range. One of the main objectives is to obtain the location of the tracked vehicle as quickly as possible, so that the data obtained are not transformed into Cartesian coordinates, but are considered directly as polar coordinates with signal reflection values. The system is attached to the MOOS-IvP environment, and it has been tested under laboratory conditions and in the lake test. During the experiment, the vehicle was moved in different directions relative to the sonar. The objective was achieved, the system detects and track potential swarm leader.