Le positionnement d'objets sous-marins représente un enjeu stratégique pour des applications militaires, industrielles et scientifiques. Les systèmes de positionnement reposent sur des signaux de type SONAR « Sound Navigation and Ranging ». Plusieurs émetteurs synchrones avec des temps d'émission connus sont alors considérés, l'objectif étant que la position d'un récepteur se fasse en fonction des positions des émetteurs. Nous avons la main mise sur la détection des signaux en réception d'une part, et sur le choix des formes d'ondes à l'émission d'autre part. La méthode de détection, basée sur le filtrage adapté, se veut robuste aux différentes perturbations engendrées par le canal de propagation (pertes par transmission, multi-trajets) et par le système lui-même (environnement multi-émetteurs). De plus, la détection restreinte à une somme de tests d'hypothèses binaires, nécessite un fonctionnement en temps réel. A l'émission, les formes d'ondes doivent permettre d'identifier indépendamment les émetteurs les uns des autres. Ainsi les travaux portent essentiellement sur les modulations FHSS, les paramètres de construction de ces signaux étant alors choisis de sorte à optimiser la méthode de détection étudiée. Enfin, l'implémentation des algorithmes issus de ces travaux sur des systèmes embarqués a permis leur validation sur des données enregistrées, puis en conditions réelles. Ces essais ont été réalisés avec l'entreprise ALSEAMAR, dans le cadre de la thèse CIFRE-DGA. / There is an increasing interest in underwater positioning system in industry (off-shore, military, and biology). In order to localize a receiver relative to a grid of transmitters, thanks to the knowledge of positions and transmission time, it needs to detect each signal and estimate the TOA (Time Of Arrival). Thus, a range between a transmitter and receiver can be deduced by estimation of TOA. When receiver knows three ranges at least, it can deduce its position by triangulation. This work takes into account signal detection, and waveform choice. Detection method, based on matched filter, needs to be robust face to propagation channel (transmission loss, multi-paths) and to the system (multi-users environment). Moreover, the detection structure, being a combination of binary hypothesis testing, must work in real time. In a CDMA context which requires to distinguish each transmitter, the FHSS (Frequency Hopped Spread Spectrum) modulation, allocating one code per user, is adapted. FHSS signals performance, depending of the number of frequency shifts N and the time-bandwidth product, are analyzed from detection criterion point of view. Moreover, detection method and adapted signal is tested in a shallow water environment.The research was supported by ALSEAMAR and DGA-MRIS scholarship.

This document details the design, implementation, testing, and analysis of an inverted short baseline acoustic positioning system. The system presented here is an above-water, air-based prototype for an underwater acoustic positioning system; it is designed to determine the position of remotely-operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the global frame using a method that does not drift over time. A ground-truth positioning system is constructed using a stacked hexapod platform actuator, which mimics the motion of an AUV and provides the true position of an ultrasonic microphone array. An ultrasonic transmitter sends a pulse of sound towards the array; microphones on the array record the pulse of sound and use the time shift between the microphone signals to determine the position of the transmitter relative to the receiver array. The orientation of the array, which is necessary to transform the position estimate to the global frame, is calculated using a Madgwick filter and data from a MEMS IMU. Additionally, a dead reckoning change-in-position estimate is formed using the IMU data. The acoustic position estimate is combined with the dead reckoning estimate using a Kalman filter. The accuracy of this filtered position estimate was verified to 22.1mm within a range of 3.88m in this air-based implementation. The ground-truth positioning system runs on an ESP32 microcontroller using code written in C++, and the acoustic positioning system runs on two STM32 microcontrollers using code written in C. Extrapolation of these results to the underwater regime, as well as recommendations for improving upon this work, are included at the end of the document. All code written for this thesis is available on GitHub and is open-source and well-documented.