Autonomous Path Planning of AUV in Large-Scale Complex Marine Environment Based on Swarm Hyper-Heuristic Algorithm

Abstract

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) as an efficient underwater exploration means have been used to perform various marine missions. However, limited by the technologies of underwater acoustic communications and intelligent autonomy, the most current and advanced AUVs only perform a limited number of tasks in the small-scale area and the known underwater environment. Therefore, in this paper, a one path planning model was proposed combining the global path planning and the local path planning for the large-scale complex marine environment. More specifically, the B-spline curve was used to represent the smooth path for the requirement of kinematic constraints of AUVs. After considering the various constraints, such as the energy/time consumption, the turning radius limitation, the marine environment, and the ocean current, the path planning was abstractly modeled as a multi-objective optimization model with the time cost, the curvature cost, the map cost, and the ocean current cost. The swarm hyper-heuristic algorithm (SHH) with the online learning ability was proposed to solve this model with real-time performance and stability. The results showed that the proposed online learning SHH algorithm had obvious advantages in terms of time efficiency, stability, and optimal performance compared with the results of two traditional heuristic algorithms, both particle swarm optimization (PSO) and firefly algorithm (FFA). The time efficiency of the online learning SHH algorithm improved at least 20% compared with PSO and FFA. Featured Application.

Whale Optimization Algorithm for Ship Path Optimization in Large-Scale Complex Marine Environment

“…The main purpose of the development of meta-heuristic algorithms is to quickly solve path planning problem and get satisfactory solutions. The meta-heuristic algorithm has exhibited good performance in solving most of the nonlinear and multimodal practical optimization problems [6]. At the same time, it has also been widely used, such as dynamic optimization, infinite impulse response filter design, image processing, mechanical design issues, task scheduling, data mining and other engineering issues.…”

“…In recent years, many scholars have proposed some swarm intelligence algorithms to solve path planning problems. Wei proposed swarm hyper-heuristic algorithm to solve path planning of AUV [6]. Ma proposed an improved ant colony algorithm based on particle swarm algorithm for path planning of autonomous underwater vehicles [11].…”

Event-Based Path-Planning and Path-Following in Unknown Environments for Underactuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

“…The emphasis in the contemporary studies on dynamic (local) path planning is made on developing effective algorithms with low computational costs that are applicable for real-time implementation. Real-time path planning can be achieved while using artificial potential field method [8], rapidly-exploring random trees [9,10], Voronoi diagrams [11], bioinspired meta-heuristics [12], method based on interfered fluid dynamical system [13], and waypoint guidance method [4,14,15]. Additionally, AI-based optimization algorithms are actively applied to path-planning of AUVs in an unknown environment.…”

“…In this case, the obtained path, which usually consists of straight lines and circular arcs, is only first-order differentiable or smooth. The degree of smoothness of the path can be increased with the help of splines [12], but their use makes the planning process more complicated due to the need to meet the geometrical constraints of obstacles. Another common approach for satisfying kinematic constraints consists in building a path of minimum curvature via solving a nonlinear programming problem [20].…”

3DOF Adaptive Line-Of-Sight Based Proportional Guidance Law for Path Following of AUV in the Presence of Ocean Currents

“…AUV is a kind of marine equipment that plays a major role to improve the human life, such as marine environment exploration, marine resource monitoring, pelagic survey, seabed resource exploitation, military mission, and so forth [1][2][3]. It is increasingly becoming a hot topic for research in the world.…”