Multi-target Emergency Rescue Path Planning in Marine Wind and Wave Environments

Abstract

With the development of marine-related industries, the number of tasks at sea has increased, and accidents there happen more frequently as well. Search and rescue are very challenging because of the extreme wind and wave environment at sea. Therefore, the state has been paying more attention to maritime emergency rescue. One part is emergency rescue path planning, which is crucial for helicopter emergency rescue at sea. In this paper, a series of multi-target rescue path solutions are created in order to solve the challenge of multi-target rescue path planning while taking into account sea wind and waves. The rescued targets’ floating trajectory model is first established. Then, a recursive algorithm based on a permutation tree is given in response to the unsteady change of the targets’ position at sea. The rescue path is planned with the goal of cutting down on the helicopter’s search time. Finally, using the multi-target rescue in China’s Taiwan Strait as an example, it is discovered that the overall time needed for the multi-target rescue is decreased by 7.03 minutes, and the efficiency of the rescue is improved by 13.3% in the wind and wave environment at sea. According to the research, the optimal rescue path shortens the time required for multi-target rescue at sea while increasing the effectiveness of helicopter rescue operations.