A Novel Hybrid Method in Global Path Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Subject Areas : Renewable energy

Shabnam  Pesteh ¹ (MSc/Isfahan University of Technology)
Ahmadreza  Naghsh-Nilchi ² (Assistant Professor/Isfahan University)
Farid  Sheykholeslam ³ (Associate Professor/Isfahan University of Technology)

Received: 2010-01-12 Accepted : 2010-05-16 Published : 2010-02-01

Keywords: Path planning, Mobile Robots, Obstacle avoidance, Autonomous underwater vehicles,

Abstract :

Numerous methods have been developed to solve the path planning problem, among which the visibility graph, Voronoi diagram, Quad-Tree and Wave-Front are well-known techniques. In this paper, a new global path planning algorithm named HYBRID-Visibility-QuadTree-Voronoi-WaveFront method (HYBRID-VQVW) is presented where these four methods are integrated in a single architecture. After constructing these global trajectories of C-space, the best trajectory among four is selected in every sampling distance by several criterions. These criterions consist of length, smoothness and safety of the trajectory. In fact, the algorithm provides a parametric tradeoff between shortest, safest and smoothest paths and generally yields shorter and smoother paths than the Voronoi, Quad-Tree and Wave-Front methods, and safer than the visibility graph.