A USBL/DR underwater integrated positioning method based on the cubature particle filter

Abstract This paper proposes a USBL/DR underwater integrated navigation method based on the cubature particle filter (CPF) to address the challenges of navigation in complex underwater environments. The proposed algorithm utilizes an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with a Doppler velocity log (DVL) and a heading reference system for dead reckoning (DR). A hybrid positioning system is developed by integrating position and velocity data from the ultra-short baseline (USBL) and DVL. To overcome the issue of particle degradation commonly observed in particle filters during integrated navigation data fusion, CPF is employed for enhanced filtering performance. The proposed algorithm was successfully tested through both simulation experiments and lake trials. The approach successfully combines the advantages of both navigation systems, demonstrating superior underwater positioning accuracy over short durations compared to conventional particle filter (PF) and unscented particle filter (UPF) methods.