Abstract:
The trend of ocean exploration puts forward higher requirements for automatic
vehicles, while navigation system has been the development constraint for them.
“Nature” reported that some sea turtles respond to geomagnetic map for their localization.
The actual mechanism is not clear, but it offers a sign for underwater navigation research.
Matching algorithms can be used for this purpose, which can match the path followed by
the vehicle on a map. The traditional iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm for image
registration combined with Inertial Navigation System (INS) can be used for location
determination. This report emphasizes on how to modify and improve ICP algorithm
according to underwater geomagnetic localization.
The algorithm’s applicability is concluded mathematically from the localization
algorithms. Then the simulation experiments are carried out, which are based on real
geomagnetic data, to show the validation of this algorithm and good results are obtained.
The simulation is done in MATLAB 7.4.0. The geomagnetic data used is from the
standard WMM2005 (World Magnetic Map) of January 1, 2009, 100m below sea-level.
