Improved artificial potential field path planning simulation for autonomous underwater vehicle

Abstract:
The complex seafloor topography and dynamic underwater environment bring challenges to the real-time path planning of autonomous underwater vehicle. An improved artificial potential field path planning method is proposed in this paper. It is based on the traditional artificial potential field method and consider the influence of environmental factors such as ocean current. During path planning, the parameters of attractive force and repulsive force are dynamically adjusted according to the environmental factors such as ocean current around the autonomous underwater vehicle, take into account the cost and safety, and overcome the problem that the artificial potential field path planning algorithm cannot be applied in the dynamic environment. In order to verify the effectiveness of our method, a 3D scene of the underwater real marine environment is reconstructed. Compared with the path planned by traditional artificial potential field method, the experiment results show that the path obtained by our improved path planning method significantly reduce the cost of navigation while maintaining safety of navigation.