With its never-ending blue color, the underwater environment often seems monotonic and featureless. However, to an animal with polarization-sensitive vision, it is anything but bland. The rich repertoire of underwater polarization patterns-a consequence of light's air-to-water transmission and in-water scattering-can be exploited both as a compass and for geolocalization purposes. We demonstrate that, by using a bioinspired polarization-sensitive imager, we can determine the geolocation of an observer based on radial underwater polarization patterns. Our experimental data, recorded at various locations around the world, at different depths and times of day, indicate that the average accuracy of our geolocalization is 61 km, or 6 m of error for every 1 km traveled. This proof-of-concept study of our bioinspired technique opens new possibilities in long-distance underwater navigation and suggests additional mechanisms by which marine animals with polarization-sensitive vision might perform both local and long-distance navigation.

中文翻译：

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受生物启发的极化视觉使水下地理定位成为可能。

凭借其永无止境的蓝色，水下环境通常看起来单调且毫无特色。但是，对于具有偏振敏感视觉的动物来说，它不过是平淡无奇的东西。水下极化模式的丰富组成部分（光从空气到水的传播和在水中的散射的结果）可以用作指南针和地理定位用途。我们证明，通过使用受生物启发的偏振敏感成像仪，我们可以基于径向水下偏振模式确定观察者的地理位置。我们在世界各地不同深度和一天中的不同时间记录的实验数据表明，我们的地理定位的平均精度为61 km，即每行驶1 km误差为6 m。