Adaptive Localization for Underwater Nodes in Uncertain Environments: A Geometric Topology Perception-Enhanced Multi-Stage Reinforcement Learning Strategy

Complex underwater environments induce difficult-to-quantify ranging errors, constraining the localization accuracy and robustness of heterogeneous networks. To address this, a node localization method based on a Geometric Topology Perception-Enhanced Multi-Stage Reinforcement Learning Strategy is proposed. First, an uncertainty quantification model under multi-source interference is established to characterize time-varying noise and accurately quantify the ranging errors of heterogeneous links. Subsequently, using the resulting ranging variance, an adaptive weight allocation mechanism based on Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimation is constructed to dynamically adjust link weights, achieving the robust fusion of multi-modal observation data. Finally, a Weighted Least Squares objective function is formulated, and the GP-AC strategy is developed. By utilizing Gaussian Process Regression and local Geometric Dilution of Precision, a multi-stage reward mechanism is constructed to circumvent topological traps and accurately estimate the single-epoch three-dimensional coordinates of static or quasi-static underwater sensor nodes. Simulation results demonstrate that system robustness is improved by 91.9%, average accuracy is enhanced by 54.9%, and the measured average localization time is 7.45 s.