An underwater acoustical navigation (UWAN) system is widely used on an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The navigation error prediction is of great significance to the design, use, and capability upgrade for the UWAN system. Owing to the trend of faster AUV and the need for higher navigation accuracy, traditional navigation models are mismatched. Besides, they adopt fixed input errors (including measurement errors of sound velocity, time delay, and array position), which are inconsistent with the real complex acoustic channel. As a consequence, the prediction accuracy of the navigation error is greatly reduced. The authors proposed a novel navigation error prediction method for UWAN based on AUV. Firstly, they established the acoustical navigation model for moving AUV and deduced the error prediction formula. Secondly, considering the complex underwater acoustic channel, they applied the variable error models as the inputs of the prediction formula. Finally, simulations and experiments in different situations verified the effectiveness of the proposed method. The method will provide effective theoretical support for the performance evaluation of the UWAN system based on moving AUV.

中文翻译：

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基于AUV的UWAN导航误差预测

水下声学导航（UWAN）系统广泛用于自动水下航行器（AUV）。导航误差预测对于UWAN系统的设计，使用和功能升级具有重要意义。由于AUV更快的趋势以及对更高导航精度的需求，传统的导航模型不匹配。此外，它们采用固定的输入误差（包括声速，时间延迟和阵列位置的测量误差），这与真实的复杂声通道不一致。结果，大大降低了导航误差的预测精度。作者提出了一种基于AUV的UWAN导航误差预测的新方法。首先，他们建立了用于移动AUV的声学导航模型，并推导了误差预测公式。其次，考虑到复杂的水下声通道，他们将可变误差模型用作预测公式的输入。最后，在不同情况下的仿真和实验验证了该方法的有效性。该方法将为基于移动AUV的UWAN系统的性能评估提供有效的理论支持。