Cooperatively Mapping of the Underwater Acoustic Channel by Robot Swarms

摘要

This paper presents a novel approach that employs coordinated robot swarms to create a spatial map for parameters of underwater acoustic communication channels. Understanding spatial variations of acoustic channel parameters is crucial to underwater networking with mixed static and mobile communication nodes. We envision using multiple marine robots maintained in a formation to collect simultaneous measurements of communication signals transmitted by a sound source. The data collected is processed by a cooperative filtering algorithm to generate a local map of a class of channel parameters. The motion of the robots will then be planned by an explorability based method to facilitate map construction under the influence from uncertainty in channel parameters. Our work integrates robotic mapping methods with underwater acoustic communication channel modeling and identification algorithms. We have also combined simulation tools from robotic map making and acoustic channel simulations, which may be valuable for future field experiments.