Multi-objective AUV Path Planning in Large Complex Battlefield Environments

摘要

Path planning plays an extremely important role in the operation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to accomplish the underwater task safely, successfully and efficiently. This paper introduces the Fast Marching method for the path planning of AUVs in 3D large-scale battlefield environments to solve the problem that AUVs require low probability of being found, navigation security and low fuel consumption. The algorithm is able to find the optimal path between two waypoints in the work space and comprehensively takes factors such as the risk of collision with obstacles and mine, detection probability, sailing depth and path length into account. It also considers the maneuverability constraints of the AUV, including the safety depth and turning radius, to obtain the final flyable path. Finally, the proposed algorithm is tested in a large-scale area containing underwater terrain elevation map, sonar and mine density map to evaluate its feasibility, stability and efficiency.