Preliminary Experimental Validation of the MARINA ASV for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Positioning

Cooperative strategies between surface and under-water vehicles that address underwater environment challenges are crucial for increasingly complex and long marine operations. Adaptability to these conditions is essential for the unpredictable and harsh scenarios that the marine domain could present. In this context, the team of Robotics, Automation and Autonomous Systems Laboratory (RAASL) of the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa is developing MARINA (Marine Autonomous Robot for Intelligent Networking Applications), a prototype Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) equipped with an Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) device to support the navigation of an underwater vehicle. MARINA architecture allows the development and testing of cooperative algorithms designed to support, track, and follow underwater vehicles during missions. The main characteristic of MARINA is the flexible deployment of the USBL, which is mounted on an actuated rod that can be retracted remotely or manually when it is needed, facilitating the transport operation and the installation on land and protecting the acoustic sensor integrity and avoiding impacts with seabed or debris. In this work, the USBL integration and positioning capability were tested in a controlled lake environment. Preliminary results show promising potential for MARINA to support underwater vehicle navigation effectively.