The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 22, 2016
Filed:
Oct. 28, 2013
Teledyne Rd Instruments, Inc., Poway, CA (US);
Brandon S. Strong, San Diego, CA (US);
Teledyne Instruments, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Abstract
Underwater vehicles may fix their position from GPS at the surface of the water and use bottom track for dead reckoning once it has descended to within tracking range of the bottom of a body of water. This disclosure describes a method and system for navigation through the water through depths where GPS is not available using current profiles from sonar systems including acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP). This extrapolation of earth referenced current profiles can provide a way to estimate vehicle motion below the surface before the vehicle reaches the bottom. Once bottom track is achieved, the corrected reference for vehicle motion improves the vehicle position estimate. A Kalman filter updates vehicle position and current profile estimates during descent, and the bottom track when the bottom comes within range to enable navigation of underwater vehicles.