Online compensation of heading sensor bias for low cost AUVs

Abstract

Presents a study of the effects of compass bias on navigational accuracy of autonomous underwater vehicles. Low cost vehicle systems utilize a magnetometer, and Doppler sonar for dead reckoning, and a DGPS fix when surfaced. By learning the compass bias from a few DGPS fixes, the navigational errors can be bounded with only a small number of fixes. The study is conducted using the Florida Atlantic University OEX vehicle and a large set of data obtained from a 3.5 Km run including several segments at different headings so that the dependency of compass error on actual heading could be evaluated.