Efficient multibeam sensor model for underwater navigation

Abstract

Multibeam echosounder is one of the widely used sonar sensors for underwater terrain mapping. The generated terrain maps are useful information in underwater navigation, especially in a wide area or long-range navigation. Underwater robotsestimate its position and orientation by comparing the sensor measurements with a predicted one from a map. In this paper, an efficient prediction model for multibeam observation is proposed, and its performance is evaluated with real-world terrain data.