Development of a Simulation Environment for Evaluation of a Forward Looking Sonar System for Small AUVs

TL;DR

This paper presents a high-fidelity simulation environment for evaluating forward-looking sonar systems on small AUVs, enabling design optimization and obstacle detection assessment in underwater robotics.

Contribution

It introduces a real-time sonar simulation environment with a novel obstacle detection model for AUVs, aiding in design and algorithm evaluation.

Findings

Simulator achieves real-time visualization with ray tracing.

The obstacle detection model estimates null hypothesis from environmental data.

Comparison shows benefits and limitations of the proposed sonar approach.

Abstract

This paper describes a high-fidelity sonar model and a simulation environment that implements the model. The model and simulation environment have been developed to aid in the design of a forward looking sonar for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The simulator achieves real-time visualization through ray tracing and approximation. The simulator facilitates the assessment of sonar design choices, such as beam pattern and beam location, and assessment of obstacle detection and tracking algorithms. An obstacle detection model is proposed for which the null hypothesis is estimated from the environmental model. Sonar data is generated from the simulator and compared to the expected results from the detection model demonstrating the benefits and limitations of the proposed approach.