Guidance Laws, Obstacle Avoidance, Artificial Potential Functions (Preprint)

摘要

In the context of autonomy for underwater vehicles, we assume that a usual suite of feedback controllers are present in the form of autopilot functions that provide for the regulation of vehicle speed, heading, and depth or altitude. In this chapter, we consider the topic of Guidance Laws, Obstacle Avoidance and the use of Artificial Potential Functions (APFs). This topic deals with the computations required to plan and develop paths and commands, which are used by these auto-pilots. Simple guidance laws such as proportional guidance have been used for many years in missiles to provide interception with targets. Lateral accelerations are commanded proportional to the rate of change of line of sight. So long as the chaser vehicle has a speed advantage over the non-maneuvering target, simply reducing the angle of line.