The invention relates to the technical field of 
underwater positioning, in particular to a single 
beacon positioning method of an 
underwater vehicle. According to the single 
beacon positioning methodof the 
underwater vehicle with global convergence, an 
underwater vehicle is provided with a 
hydrophone, a Doppler velocimeter, a depth meter, an attitude heading reference 
system and a GPS; and underwater acoustic beacons periodically broadcast underwater acoustic signals. According to the method, a nonlinear single 
beacon positioning model in a discrete state is converted into a linear time-varying model through state augmentation; when the underwater acoustic 
signal is not received, the relative speed and the attitude of the 
underwater vehicle and water by a device carried by the underwatervehicle are obtained to carry out 
dead reckoning; after the underwater acoustic 
signal is received, the underwater acoustic 
signal transmission time is collected through known underwater acoustic signal 
transmission time and is taken as an observation variable, and 
dead reckoning data and 
observation data of various sensors are simultaneously integrated to predict and update the single beacon positioning based on Kalman filtering. On the premise of meeting the 
observability of a positioning model, the method has global exponential convergence.