Relative Navigation for Autonomous Underwater Proximity Operations
Time: Fri 2025-12-19 10.00
Location: F3 (Flodis), Lindstedtsvägen 26 & 28, Stockholm
Video link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/67637947676
Language: English
Subject area: Vehicle and Maritime Engineering
Doctoral student: Aldo Terán Espinoza , Flyg- och rymdteknik, marina system och rörelsemekanik, Underwater Robotics
Opponent: Professor Pedro Ridao Rodriguez, Universitat de Girona, Spain
Supervisor: Professor Jacob Kuttenkeuler, Flyg- och rymdteknik, marina system och rörelsemekanik; Professor John Folkesson, Robotik, perception och lärande, RPL; Doctor Peter Sigray, Flyg- och rymdteknik, marina system och rörelsemekanik; Adjunct Professor Roger Berg, Flyg- och rymdteknik, marina system och rörelsemekanik; Professor Nina Kirchner, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
QC 20251119
Abstract
This thesis dives into the world of autonomous underwater robotics, specifically oriented at solving the relative navigation problem that arises during an underwater multi-agent proximity operation (prox-op). The present document starts with an introduction to the background theoretical and practical concepts required for the reader to follow the contributions outlined within. We define the concept of proximity operations in the underwater domain and highlight a factor-graph-based robotic state estimation framework used to intuitively model arbitrary prox-ops as Simultaneous Trajectory Estimation and Relative Navigation (STERN) problems. We continue by outlining the attached scientific contributions which carefully address the different elements of the general factor graph representation in a procedural manner: we start by isolating the two navigation-dependent phases of the prox-op and solve them independently; subsequently, we study the full scenario from end to end. The document is redacted such that it provides the story in hindsight surrounding the scientific contributions that are part of this compilation thesis.