Abstract
This paper investigates the task assignment and path planning problem for multiple AUVs in three dimensional (3D) underwater wireless sensor networks where nonholonomic motion constraints of underwater AUVs in 3D space are considered. The multi-target task assignment and path planning problem is modeled by the Multiple Traveling Sales Person (MTSP) problem and the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to solve the MTSP problem with Euclidean distance as the cost function and the Tour Hop Balance (THB) or Tour Length Balance (TLB) constraints as the stop criterion. The resulting tour sequences are mapped to 2D Dubins curves in the plane, and then interpolated linearly to obtain the Z coordinates. We demonstrate that the linear interpolation fails to achieve continuity in the 3D Dubins path for multiple targets. Therefore, the interpolated 3D Dubins curves are checked against the AUV dynamics constraint and the ones satisfying the constraint are accepted to finalize the 3D Dubins curve selection. Simulation results demonstrate that the integration of the 3D Dubins curve with the MTSP model is successful and effective for solving the 3D target assignment and path planning problem.
Highlights
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and underwater gliders have found important applications in ocean exploration, oil and gas production, environmental monitoring, underwater infrastructure monitoring, weather services, and coastal surveillance [1,2,3]
We investigate the simple linear interpolation method of 3D Dubins curve in the multi-target path planning scenario and demonstrate that the simple 3D Dubins curves fail to meet with G1 continuity at multiple targets, because the 3D Dubins path may be G1 continuous in the X − Y plane, they are discontinuous in the Z-domain
This paper has studied the 3D Dubins curves for target assignment and path planning for multiple underwater targets visited by multiple AUVs
Summary
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and underwater gliders have found important applications in ocean exploration, oil and gas production, environmental monitoring, underwater infrastructure monitoring, weather services, and coastal surveillance [1,2,3]. Dubins curve is recently proposed in [14] for unmanned aerial vehicles by using linear interpolation This method is adopted in [12,13] for path planning of gliders and AUVs. The multi-target multi-AUV task assignment and path planning problem is commonly modeled by the multiple traveling salesperson (MTSP) problem. We investigate the simple linear interpolation method of 3D Dubins curve in the multi-target path planning scenario and demonstrate that the simple 3D Dubins curves fail to meet with G1 continuity at multiple targets, because the 3D Dubins path may be G1 continuous in the X − Y plane, they are discontinuous in the Z-domain Based on this finding, we propose a simple solution for accommodating the vehicle dynamics. Simulation results demonstrate that the integration of the 3D Dubins curve with the MTSP model is successful and effective for solving the 3D target assignment and path planning problem
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
