Acoustical Underwater Localization of a Remotely Operated Vehicle in Mariculture

Localization of underwater vehicles, namely remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), used in mariculture autonomous inspection applications represents a challenging problem. The need for accurate localization of an ROV is further emphasized by often cluttered underwater environment of fisheries with many ropes and mooring around the net pens potentially causing entanglement with ROV's tether. This paper presents an overview and preliminary results of the HEKTOR (Heterogeneous Autonomous Robotic System in Viticulture and Mariculture) project regarding the ROV localization using acoustics mounted onto an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV). The ROV and the developed ASV are described, together with the hardware and software integration of a short baseline acoustic localization system. Preliminary sea trial results show promising performance of the localization system, proving that it could be used in autonomous net pen inspection missions.