Scalable Aerial GNSS Localization for Marine Robots

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable aerial GNSS-based localization method for marine robots, using drones to overcome water surface signal reflection issues and improve accuracy and efficiency.

Contribution

It presents a novel aerial GNSS localization approach for marine robots, addressing limitations of traditional onboard systems and enabling scalable multi-robot localization.

Findings

Enables accurate marine robot localization using aerial GNSS.

Supports single and multi-robot localization.

Offers a scalable alternative to traditional methods.

Abstract

Accurate localization is crucial for water robotics, yet traditional onboard Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) approaches are difficult or ineffective due to signal reflection on the water's surface and its high cost of aquatic GNSS receivers. Existing approaches, such as inertial navigation, Doppler Velocity Loggers (DVL), SLAM, and acoustic-based methods, face challenges like error accumulation and high computational complexity. Therefore, a more efficient and scalable solution remains necessary. This paper proposes an alternative approach that leverages an aerial drone equipped with GNSS localization to track and localize a marine robot once it is near the surface of the water. Our results show that this novel adaptation enables accurate single and multi-robot marine robot localization.