With the development of ocean exploration technology, the exploration of the ocean has become a hot research field involving the use of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). In complex underwater environments, the fast, safe, and smooth arrival of target points is key for AUVs to conduct underwater exploration missions. Most path-planning algorithms combine deep reinforcement learning (DRL) and path-planning algorithms to achieve obstacle avoidance and path shortening. In this paper, we propose a method to improve the local minimum in the artificial potential field (APF) to make AUVs out of the local minimum by constructing a traction force. The improved artificial potential field (IAPF) method is combined with DRL for path planning while optimizing the reward function in the DRL algorithm and using the generated path to optimize the future path. By comparing our results with the experimental data of various algorithms, we found that the proposed method has positive effects and advantages in path planning. It is an efficient and safe path-planning method with obvious potential in underwater navigation devices.
Traditional ship identification systems have difficulty in identifying illegal or broken ships, but the wakes generated by ships can be used as a major feature for identification. However, multi-ship and multi-scale wake detection is also a big challenge. This paper combines the geometric and pixel characteristics of ships and their wakes in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and proposes a method for multi-ship and multi-scale wake detection. This method first detects the highlight pixel area in the image and then generates specific windows around the centroid, thereby detecting wakes of different sizes in different areas. In addition, all wake components can be located completely based on wake clustering, the statistical features of wake axis pixels can be used to determine the visible length of the wake. Test results on the Gaofen-3 SAR image show the special potential of the method for wake detection.
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