Construction of a high-resolution under-ice AUV navigation framework using a multidisciplinary virtual environment

We developed a new high resolution under-ice autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) navigation framework with integrated acoustic communications, solely using a multidisciplinary physics-based virtual environment. This framework was then successfully demonstrated at the Ice Exercise 2020 (ICEX-20) conducted at 71 degree latitude in the Arctic Beaufort Sea. While this paper briefly describes the developed navigation framework, the primary focus is the virtual environment that was used to construct this framework. The virtual environment included sub-components to simulate the ocean environment, dynamics of the AUV, on-board sensors, arctic ice motion, ice buoy network, acoustic propagation as well as emulators to test the interface drivers between real subsystems. The navigation performance is evaluated using data from a 11 km untethered under-ice mission conducted at ICEX-20, and a similar mission conducted in the virtual environment.