Improved line-of-sight guidance for cruising underwater vehicles

Abstract

Guidance through waypoints is common for small autonomous marine vehicles. Guidance by the line of sight, which turns the vehicle directly towards the next waypoint without any reference path calculation, is computationally the simplest form of waypoint guidance. However, the basic algorithm gives rather poor guidance due to the missed waypoint problem, lack of sea current compensation and abrupt transitions between the consecutive waypoints. Significant path deviations and even deadlocks are possible due to these problems. Therefore, more complex algorithms are usually used in real world applications. The research reported in this paper aims to demonstrate that significant improvements of the basic line-of-sight guidance algorithm can be achieved by several intuitive, simple corrections and additions. The simplicity of the basic line-of-sight guidance algorithm is not compromised. In particular, missed waypoint detection is performed by monitoring the distance between the vehicle and the waypoint. Introduced reference heading corrections are based upon the location of the next waypoint after the one the vehicle is currently approaching, and upon the sea current direction and intensity. The results of these corrections are shown in several simulation examples. In addition, the paper includes a short discussion about the line-of-sight guidance in the diving plane.