Estimation Problems for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
Under Finite Communication Constraints
Nanang Syahroni1), Young Bong Seo2) and Jae Weon Choi2)
1) Electronics Engineering Polytechnic Institute of Surabaya, email: nanang@eepis-its.edu
2) Pusan National University, Busan, Korea, email: ybseo@pusan.ac.kr, choijw@pusan.ac.kr
Abstract - In this paper, we investigate a linear
optimal control system for design of a depth control
for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) under the
presence of a finite bandwidth of communication
network. The problem is addressed through the use of
remote control and estimation problem via a
communication channel with a bandwidth limitation
and the additive noise. The coder-estimator sequence
algorithm is employed in order to transmit
measurement data and to estimate the states of the
vehicles. The ocean depth measurement using
frequency domain to estimate the ocean depth from
acoustic backscatter returns is presented in detailed.
Keywords : autonomous underwater vehicle, remote
control, coder-estimator, communication constraints
1. INTRODUCTION
In underwater application impose a severe
restriction on power consumption and present
challenging problems in intelligent control.
Navigation is an important requirement for any type
of robot, three primary navigation methods for AUV
are dead-reckoning and inertial navigation [1,2],
geophysical navigation [3,4,5], and acoustic
navigation [6,7].
Acoustic modem technology can enable remote
control of AUV, but communication bandwidth and
reliability are restricted by challenging acoustic
propagation conditions. Acoustic electromagnetic
energy propagates well in the ocean, and hence
acoustic transponders can be used as beacons to
guide the motion of an AUV without the need for
resurfacing. Two types of system have been primarily
employed [6,7], long baseline (LBL) and ultra-short
baseline (USBL). Both systems employ external
transducers or transducer arrays as aids to compute
position fixes by locating the intersection point of
spheres of appropriate radiuses from the beacons in
the array, and integrate the raw time-of-flight
measurements into an appropriate Kalman filter [8].
A remote control and estimation problem via a
communication channel with a finite capacity
constraint is considered in the paper. The coder-
estimator sequence algorithm is employed in order to
transmit measurement data and to estimate the states
of the vehicles.
A coder-estimator sequence proposed in [9], and
recursive coder-estimator sequence based on
observation transmitted with finite communication
capacity for platoon merging also studied in [10]. In
this paper addressing the problem for state estimation
for AUV under the situation where observation and
control input are sent over communication
constraints.
In this paper we organized as follows: Section 2
presents AUV dynamic model. Section 3 gives the
controller algorithm. Section 4 gives recursive coder-
estimator sequence algorithm to estimate the states of
the vehicles. Section 5 gives depth estimation using
frequency-domain approach. Section 6 presents
results from the simulations together with the
assumptions of problems solution. The last section
covers conclusions.
2. VEHICLE MODEL
The vehicle to be controlled is the torpedo type
AUV with free degree deflection fin to adjust a
vehicle depth, AUV Model is depicted in figure 1.
The simple’s form of equation of motion is
obtained with body axes coincident with the
principles axes of inertia, and the origin at the center
of mass center of gravity (CG), for this case the
equation in the dimensionless form as in [11] are:
X  m[u  qw   r ]
Y  m[  ru  pw]
Z  m[ w  pv  qu ]
(1)
K  I x p  ( I z  I y )qr
M  I y q  ( I x  I z )rp
N  I z r  ( I y  I x ) pq
The 6DOF components of the rigid body dynamic
equations of motion of the submerged vehicle are:
X  m[u   r  wq  xG (q 2  r 2 )  yG ( pq  r)  zG ( pr  q )] Dv  (m  Z w )( I y  M q )  (mxG  Z q )(mxG  M w )
zGB  zG  z B
Y  m[  ur  wq  xG ( pq  r)  yG ( p 2  r 2 )  zG (qr  p )]
(mxG  Z q )W
Z  m[ w  uq   p  xG ( pr  q )  yG (qr  p )  zG ( p 2  q 2 )] a21  
Dv
K  I x p  ( I z  I y )qr  I xy ( pr  q )  I yz (q 2  r 2 )  I xz ( pq  r)
(2) ( I y  M q ) Z w  (mxG  Z q ) M w
a22 
 m[ yG ( w  uq   p )  zG (  ur  wp )] Dv
( I y  M q )(m  Z q )  (mxG  Z q )( M q  mxG )
M  I y q  ( I x  I z ) pr  I xy (qr  p )  I yz ( pq  r)  I xz ( p 2  r 2 ) a23 
Dv
 m[ xG ( w  uq   p )  zG (u   r  wq )] (mxG  Z q )W
a31 
N  I z r  ( I y  I x ) pq  I xy ( p 2  q 2 )  I yz ( pr  q )  I xz (qr  p ) Dv
(m  Z w ) M w  (mxG  M w ) M 
 m[ xG (  ur  wp )  yG (u   r  wq )] a32 
Dv
(m  Z w )( Mq  mxG )  (mxG  M w )(m  Z q )
where, X, Y, and Z are surge, sway, and heave force; a33 
Dv
K, M, and N are roll, pitch, and yaw moment; p, q, ( I y  M q ) Z  (mxG  Z q ) M 
b1 
and r are roll, pitch, and yaw rate; u, v, and w are Dv
surge, sway, and heave velocity; x, y, and z are body ( I y  Z w ) M   (mxG  M q ) Z
b2 
fixed axes in positive forward, positive starboard, and Dv
positive down; Ix, Iy, and Iz is vehicle mass moment
of inertia around the x-axis, around the y-axis, and
around the z-axis; xG, yG, and zG are longitudinal 3. CONTROLLER DESIGN
position, athwart position, and vertical position of
center of gravity;  ,  , and  are roll, pitch, and Fig. 2 shows the considered systems, depth
yaw angle. control is completed if the AUV arrives at desired
We can further simply equations (2) by assuming depth subtracted by safety depth and vehicle size, in
that yG is small compared to the other terms. After order words:
several steps of linearization as in [12,13], vertical zv  rv  z s  Lv (5)
motion equations become:
  q
The controller based on linear quadratic (LQ)
servo regarding to the reference input. Consider state
( m  Z w ) w  ( mxG  Z q ) q  Z wUw  ( m  Z q )Uq  U 2 Z 
(3) space model:
(  M w  mxG ) w  ( I y  M q ) q  ( zGW  z B )  M wUw
 ( M q  mxG )Uq  M  U 2
x (t )  Ax(t )  Bu (t ) (6)
z  -U   w
with y (t )  C p x(t ) , and C p is [0m( n  m) I mm ] .
It can rewritten in the matrix form
LQ servo basically base on LQ optimal control
1 0 0 0    problem to find a control law u (t )  Gx(t ) to
  
 m  Z w  (mxG  Z q ) 
0
0  mxG  M w  ( I y  M q )
0   w 
0   q 
 
minimize J  [ xT (t )Qx(t )  u T (t ) Ru (t )]dt , where
0
   G  R 1 BT P and P is solution of Riccati equation.
0 0 0 1   z 

0 0
1
0     0  A control gain G consists of G  [G y Gr ] , where

 0 Z wV  m  Zq V   
0   w  Z V 2 

Gy  R mm and Gr  R m( n  m ) , control input became:
  z W  z B  M V  
 G B w  
M q  mxG V 0   q   M  V 2 
 U 1 0   z   0  u (t )  G y y (t )  Gr xr (t )  G y r (t ) (7)
0  

Substitute it into state space model we have

Finally, we have: differential equation of close-loop system:

   0 0 1 0     0  x (t )  [ Ar  BG y C p  BG y D p ]x(t )  BG y r (t ) (8)

    
 w    a21VGB a22V a23V 0   w b1V 2  (4)
 
 q   a31 zGB a32V a33V 0   q  b2V 2 
      
 z   V 1 0 0   z   0 
where:
 the kth state at time 4in , where   1 / R , and R
bits per second is data rate of the communication
channel.
Denote by M j  ( j / 24 n )(U i  Di ) , we have:

xˆi , k ( ci ,k  j )  Di , k  M j , k
 i 1, k ( ci ,k  j )  max( Di , k  M j 1, k  Vk , Di , k  Vk )
(15)
 i 1, k ( ci ,k  j )  min( Di , k  M j 1, k  Vk , Di , k  Vk )

Finally, using the estimated value in (15) and

from (7) we can obtain the control input:
ui , k  Gi , y yi , k  Gi , r xˆi , k  Gi , y ( rv|i ,v  z s  Lv ) (16)
Fig. : AUV Model

4. CODER ESTIMATOR 5. DEPTH ESTIMATION

A coder-estimator sequence is a sequence of The acoustic echo sounding methods provide

triples {( hi , ti , Xˆ i )}i  0 , where {( hi , ti )}i  0 a coder
 
is sequence and Xˆ i is an estimator based on
{c0 ,..., ci }.
The sampled-data representation is:
xi 1, k  f ( xi , k , ui ,k , t )  Gk wi , k , for k  1,..., 4 (9)
and
yi 1,k  xi 1,k  vi 1, k , for k  1,..., 4
Where xi ,k the kth element of the state x is at
time it , t is the sampling interval, wi , k is the
measured output, and vi , k is the measurement noise.
depth data along a path directly beneath the UAV.
The ocean depth can be measured from the time
delay between transmit and reflections from bottom
of the ocean. Since the backscatter bottom return is
much weaker than the transmitted sound, the most
critical performance factor in depth measurement
accuracy is the resolution between transmitted sound
and bottom reflections.
For the purpose of enhancing the precision of
depth estimation, a number of signal processing
techniques have been proposed in recent years. In
(10) this paper, we are addressing the depth measurement
problem in the frequency domain by making use of
some of the high resolution signal subspace.
Classical high resolution frequency domain base
method is used to estimate the ocean depth from
backscatter noisy returns.

A pdf for x0 , wi , and vi for all i have interval Consider a transmitted signal f (t ) that gets
[ X 0 , X 0 ],[W , W ], and [-V ,V ] respectively. returned from the surface and bottom of the ocean. If
T1 and T2 represent the two round trip delays from
Let consider coder-estimator sequence algorithm the transmitter to the ocean surface and its bottom
representation: and back to the receiver, respectively, then the
received signal can be written as:
 0    X 0  (11)
  
 0   X 0 
r (t )  a1 f (t  T1 )  a2 f (t  T2 )  n(t ) (17)
for i  0 and k  1,...4,
where a1 and a2 represent the attenuation
We define: coefficients to and from the top and bottom surfaces
of the ocean, respectively, and n(t ) represent the
U i ,k  max fk ( X k , ui , k , 4n )  GkWk  Vk , (12) noise present.
X k [ i ,k ,  i ,k ]
Given the received waveform r (t ) over some
Di , k  min fk ( X k , ui , k , 4n )  GkWk  Vk , (13)
X k [ i ,k ,  i ,k ] duration, the problem is to fit a model as in (16) and
And use it to obtain the two delays T1 and T2 . The ocean
depth is given by c(T2  T1 ) / 2r , where c is the
hi , k ( yi , k )  j if Di , k  M j 1, k  yi , k  Di , k  M j , k (14)
velocity of propagation of sound in the ocean and r is
where hi , k ( yi , k ) is a coding function from a the refractive index of sea water. The above
wideband time-delay estimation problem has a nice
source ( yi ,k ) defined on the probability space to interpretation in the frequency domain. Consider the
the set (ci ,k ) of finite-length string of symbols for Fourier transform of (16), which assumes the form:
 R ( )  a1F ( )e  jT1  a2 F ( )e  jT 2  N ( ) (18)  1 
 jTk 
e 
In the (17) represents sinusoidal components that sk   , k  1, , K . (26)
 
modulate the common signal F ( ) . The problem of  
obtaining the unknowns T1 and T2 in (17) is similar  e jnTk 
to sinusoidal frequency estimation in the time domain.
To estimate T1 and T2 , two high resolution sk represent the delay vector associated with
schemes are described, first for the noiseless and then unknown delay Tk . Equation (23) show that rank H
in noisy situation. If N ( )  0 , (17) can be expressed = rang A = K, as illustrated in [15]. Then H is
as: singular and n – K + 1 eigenvalues of H are zero. The
eigenvectors associated with the distinct eigenvalues
K of H are orthogonal. In particular, let
R ( )
F ( )
 a e
k 1
k
 jTk
(19) (u1 , u2 , , uK ) represent eigenvectors associated with
the K nonzero eigenvalue of H, and then
(u1 , u2 , , uK ) span a K-dimensional subspace.
where K=2 in our problem. If we let Tk  Tk and
Let 1 , 2 , , K represent the nonzero
define:
eigevalues of H, and K 1 , K  2 , , n 1 the zero
R ( ) eigenvalues of H.
ri 
F ( )
|  i
, i  0,1, 2, (20)
Hui  i ui , i  1, , K (27)

then, we get:
using (23) and (27), we obtain
K
ri  a e
k 1
k
 jTk
, i  0,1, 2, (21) S * AS H ui  i ui (28)

it can rewritten as:

The structure present in (21) can be used to
estimate the unknowns Tk , k  1, , K as describe in S * i  0, i  1, , K (29)
[15].
Consider the symmetric Hankel matrix: where i  AS H ui / i
Equation (28) can be expressed as:
 r0 r1  rn 
r r2  rn 1  U  [u1 , u2 , , u K ]
H 1 (22)
      S *[1 ,  2 , ,  K ] (30)
 
 rn rn 1  rn  2   S *
If U1 and U2 represent the first and the last n rows
The above Hankel matrix allows the direct of U, respectively, then proceeding as in [15] we
evaluation of the unknown delays Tk , k  1, , K , have:
even when the attenuation constants
ak , k  1, , K are complex. U1  U 2  S1* ( I   B* ) (31)
By direct calculation, it is easy to verify that the
above H can be expressed as: And, consequently, the K generalized eigenvalues
of matrix pair (U1,U2) are given by:
H  S * AS H (23)
Where  k  e jTk , k  1, , K . (32)
Alternatively, the expression
S  ( s1 , s2 , , sK ), (24)  I  (U 2H U 2 ) 1U 2H U1 can be used to obtain the
 a1  above unknowns.
 a2 
A  (25)
   6. SIMULATION
 
 aK 
And The vehicle to be controlled is the torpedo type
AUV with free degree deflection fin to adjust a
vehicle depth. The controller design based on linear
quadratic (LQ) servo, and the depth control is
completed when AUV arrives at current depth where
the desired depth is subtracted by safety depth and
vehicle size.
For simulation, we suppose to control pitch angle
θ of AUV to near zero and depth z nearby -5 m for
first 30 times counter duration, then change depth z
to -14 m until 70 times duration, and etc., we assume
AUV reach 5o angle of dive when pitch angle
deviates to 5o from zero, and the AUV reaches the
desired depth with 0.05m of deviation.
We refer to the physical parameter of NPS AUV1
in [14], the state space equation:

 0 0 1.0000 0   0  Fig. 2: Remote Controlled System

 0.0177 -0.0342 -0.4538 
0  0.1334 
A ,B ,
 -0.0317 -0.0342 -2.0702 0  7.9401  0
    Desired Depth
 -9.1440 1.0000 0 0  0 
-2 Actual Depth

C   0 0 0 1 , D   0
-4

-6

We assume there is no noise disturbance by channel

z (m)

-8
and that measurements are directly observed by
-10
sensor. Measurement noise of pitch angle, heave rate,
pitch rate, and depth are mutually independent zero -12

mean white Gaussian noise with standard deviation

-14
of 0.2o, 0.5m/s, 0.3m/s, and 0.15m.
For LQ Servo control, obtained gain from -16
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
R 1 BT P where P is solution of Riccati equation, we time (sec)

use simple weighting matrices Q = CTC, and R = 0.1.
The obtained gains are applied for remote controller
system including noise.
The regular square linear system (22) can be
solved quicker with very simple recursive method
using Levinson-Durbin [16]. The two delay
T1 and T2 as well as their strengths are estimated in
above method. T1 and T2 correspond to the time
delays to and from target or bottom of the ocean.
Extraction of target range R is computed by
measuring the time delay t as summation from two
delays a pulse to travel the two-way path between the
acoustic sound transmitter and the target T1 and T2 .
Where R  ct / 2 is in meters, t is in seconds, c is
speed of acoustic sound in m/s, and the factor 1/2 is
needed to account for two way time delay.
Fig 3 shows the actual depth of AUV presented in
solid line with the desired depth presented in solid
dashed line. The time response of the differential
equation of close-loop system is computed by
classical numerical iteration Runga-Kutta 4th order.
As we predicted that the actual depth fluctuated with
maximum distance of 0.75m from desired depth, the
value of measurement depth reach almost 1.3m from
desired depth.
Fig. 3: Depth of AUV
7. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Coder-Estimator sequence is employed to
transmit the measurement and to estimate the state
for feedback control. We believe that the employed
coder-estimator sequence algorithm for a
communication network is suitable for underwater
environment in order to deal with limitation of
communication bandwidth.
Linear predictive method has been formulated an
applied in the frequency domain to estimate the
depth of ocean by utilizing on Hankel matrix
structure decomposition.
Although the simulation with estimation problem
here is quite simple, it serves the illustrations of the
proposed algorithm of communicating feedback
control with finite bandwidth and estimate the
measurement, even in small and noisy data.
The major portion of this paper was devoted to
all state and measurement estimation with simple,
inexpensive and effective for communication
network with finite capacity. Future research should
be directed at acquiring a better understanding of
the problems in implemented system modeling and
developing appropriate methodologies to deal with
these problems.
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