Indoor positioning system and living digital twin go live in the wave basin

Developed in collaboration with D7 Technology, a new indoor positioning system for free-running experiments in the YTU-MARINE wave basin has been completed. Because GPS-based positioning is limited inside a test hall, the position and motion of the model are tracked with several independent measurement sources.

The infrastructure brings together three components: multi-sensor perception, sensor fusion and a living digital twin. UWB infrastructure around the basin fixes the instantaneous position; a camera fixed to the model tracks ArUco markers on the ceiling, processed in real time on shore; and inertial measurement units on the model record acceleration and angular rate.

The sensor-fusion algorithms combine these complementary sources into a more reliable estimate of the model’s position, velocity and orientation. The data is fed to the basin’s digital twin in real time, where the model’s motion, the manoeuvring and seakeeping variables and its autonomy characteristics can be watched live during a run. Because commands can also be sent back to the system, the same environment supports autonomy tests and simulations.