Stable Multi-Drone GNSS Tracking System for Marine Robots

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-drone GNSS tracking system for marine robots that combines visual detection, triangulation, and EKF to achieve stable real-time positioning in challenging marine environments.

Contribution

It presents a novel multi-drone system integrating visual detection, GNSS triangulation, and a cross-drone ID alignment algorithm for robust marine robot tracking.

Findings

System achieves stable GNSS estimation in real time.

Robust multi-robot tracking with cooperative aerial coverage.

Validated in complex marine environments.

Abstract

Stable and accurate tracking is essential for marine robotics, yet Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals vanish immediately below the sea surface. Traditional alternatives suffer from error accumulation, high computational demands, or infrastructure dependence. In this work, we present a multi-drone GNSS-based tracking system for surface and near-surface marine robots. Our approach combines efficient visual detection, lightweight multi-object tracking, GNSS-based triangulation, and a confidence-weighted Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to provide stable GNSS estimation in real time. We further introduce a cross-drone tracking ID alignment algorithm that enforces global consistency across views, enabling robust multi-robot tracking with cooperative aerial coverage. We validate our system in diversified complex settings to show the accuracy and robustness of the proposed algorithm.