The Canadian Department of National Defence has developed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) capable of performing long-range missions in ice-covered waters. Autonomous operations in such an extreme environment, often where a prioi knowledge of the bathymetry is limited, requires a navigation system that is precise, reliable and repeatable. A hybrid navigation system has been developed which provides precise navigation by combining data from two different types of sensors: inertial and acoustic. This navigation system has been integrated into a large AUV, and for mission lengths of up to 200 km it has demonstrated horizontal navigational accuracies of better than 0.05% of distance travelled. This paper describes the AUV and its mission, followed by details on the specific navigation sensors selected and how the overall navigation solution is mechanized. It then describes the behaviour of the navigation system during field experiments and during a successful long-range under-ice mission in the High Arctic.
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