{"id":2134,"date":"2012-05-29T12:52:46","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T16:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/?p=2134"},"modified":"2013-03-21T09:56:12","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T13:56:12","slug":"path-planning-methods-for-autonomous-underwater-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/?p=2134","title":{"rendered":"Path Planning Methods for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles"},"content":{"rendered":"From naval operations to ocean science missions, the importance of autonomous\r\nvehicles is increasing with the advances in underwater robotics technology. Due to\r\nthe dynamic and intermittent underwater environment and the physical limitations\r\nof autonomous underwater vehicles, feasible and optimal path planning is crucial for\r\nautonomous underwater operations. The objective of this thesis is to develop and\r\ndemonstrate an e\u000efficient underwater path planning algorithm based on the level set\r\nmethod. Specifically, the goal is to compute the paths of autonomous vehicles which\r\nminimize travel time in the presence of ocean currents. The approach is to either\r\nutilize or avoid any type of ocean \r\nflows, while allowing for currents that are much\r\nlarger than the nominal vehicle speed and for three-dimensional currents which vary\r\nwith time. Existing path planning methods for the \ffields of ocean science and robotics\r\nare \ffirst reviewed, and the advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed. The\r\nunderpinnings of the level set and fast marching methods are then reviewed, including\r\ntheir new extension and application to underwater path planning. Finally, a new\r\nfeasible and optimal time-dependent underwater path planning algorithm is derived\r\nand presented. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of the algorithm, a set of\r\nidealized test-cases of increasing complexity are \ffirst presented and discussed. A real\r\nthree-dimensional path planning example, involving strong current conditions, is also\r\nillustrated. This example utilizes four-dimensional ocean \r\nflows from a realistic ocean\r\nprediction system which simulate the ocean response to the passage of a tropical\r\nstorm in the Middle Atlantic Bight region.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From naval operations to ocean science missions, the importance of autonomous vehicles is increasing with the advances in underwater robotics technology. Due to the dynamic and intermittent underwater environment and the physical limitations of autonomous underwater vehicles, feasible and optimal path planning is crucial for autonomous underwater operations. The objective of this thesis is to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mseas-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2134"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2529,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions\/2529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mseas.mit.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}