The theoretical minimum of the Geometric Dilution of Precision(GDOP)for target positioning cannot be achieved because of the coplanar constraint for the underwater station configuration.Therefore,the single-cone station configuration was extended to the combined-cone configuration to improve the observation matrix of underwater positioning system.However,the traditional optimization algorithms are still prone to local optimality and lower convergence efficiency.Therefore,an improved Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization(APSO)algorithm was proposed.Firstly,a combined-cone configuration of underwater acoustic positioning system with coplanar constraints was proposed.The proposed configurations were theoretically proved to be superimposable,rotatable and GDOP rotation invariant.To address the problem of a single criterion for station layout optimization,a criterion based on the global GDOP for the underwater targets is constructed.Furthermore,an optimization algorithm based on APSO was introduced and applied to optimize the layout of the underwater acoustic positioning system in the combined-cone-shaped configuration.Finally,it is verified that the proposed APSO can enhance the global optimality and improve the convergence efficiency of the algorithm.And the positioning accuracy is improved.