Patent ID: 8536983

Claim:
An underwater operations optimization system comprising: a water vessel having a submerged hull surface; a plurality of radio frequency identification tags positioned along the submerged hull surface, wherein each tag of said plurality of tags has unique identification data related to the positioning of said tag on the hull surface, and wherein each radio frequency identification tag is a passive low frequency tag; an underwater explorer for travelling along the submerged hull surface, the underwater explorer having a radio frequency identification reader associated therewith, for reading the unique identification data of each said tag when the reader comes within a reading range, wherein the underwater explorer is an underwater vessel, the underwater operations optimization system further comprising: a host device associated with the underwater vehicle, the host device comprising a host processor and computer-readable medium associated therewith the host processor receives tag, data from the underwater vehicle, and the computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by the host processor, cause the host processor to perform the steps of; matching the received tag data with data on a look-up table; and based on matched data, associating the tag data with a know location on the hull to determine the vessel location on the hull.