Hardware integration of the Small Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation System (SANS) using a PC/104 computer

• Main Author: Akyol, Kadir
• Other Authors: Yun, Xiaoping
• Language: en_US
• Published: Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/13575

At the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), a small AUV navigation system (SANS) has been developed for research in support of shallow-water mine countermeasures and coastal environmental monitoring. The objective of this thesis is to develop a new version of SANS, aimed at reducing size and increasing reliability by utilizing state-of-the-art hardware components. The new hardware configuration uses a PC/104 computer system, and a Crossbow DMU-VG Six-Axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). The PC/104 computer provides more computing power and more importantly, increases the reliability and compatibility of the system. Replacing the old IMU with a Crossbow IMU' eliminates the need for an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter, and thus reduces the overall size of the SANS. The new hardware components are integrated into a working system. A software interface is developed for each component. An asynchronous Kalman filter is implemented in the current SANS system as a navigation filter. Bench testing is conducted and indicates that the system works properly. The new components reduce the size of the system by 52% and increase the sampling rate to more than 80Hz.