Hybrid Motion Planning Task Allocation Model for AUV’s Safe Maneuvering in a Realistic Ocean Environment (original) (raw)
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2017
This paper presents a hybrid route-path planning model for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle's task assignment and management while the AUV is operating through the variable littoral waters. Several prioritized tasks distributed in a large scale terrain is defined first; then, considering the limitations over the mission time, vehicle's battery, uncertainty and variability of the underlying operating field, appropriate mission timing and energy management is undertaken. The proposed objective is fulfilled by incorporating a route-planner that is in charge of prioritizing the list of available tasks according to available battery and a path-planer that acts in a smaller scale to provide vehicle's safe deployment against environmental sudden changes. The synchronous process of the task assign-route and path planning is simulated using a specific composition of Differential Evolution and Firefly Optimization (DEFO) Algorithms. The simulation results indicate that the propose...
2016
Promoting the levels of autonomy facilitates the vehicle in performing long-range operations with minimum supervision. The capability of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to fulfill the mission objectives is directly influenced by route planning and task assignment system performance. This paper proposes an efficient task-assign route planning model in a semi-dynamic operation network, where the location of some waypoints are changed by time in a bounded area. Two popular meta-heuristic algorithms named biogeography-based optimization (BBO) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are adopted to provide real-time optimal solutions for task sequence selection and mission time management. To examine the performance of the method in a context of mission productivity, mission time management and vehicle safety, a series of Monte Carlo simulation trials are undertaken. The results of simulations declare that the proposed method is reliable and robust particularly in dealing with uncertainties and changes of the operation network topology; as a result, it can significantly enhance the level of vehicle's autonomy by relying on its reactive nature and capability of providing fast feasible solutions.
Toward Efficient Task Assignment and Motion Planning for Large Scale Underwater Mission
arXiv: Robotics, 2016
An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) needs to acquire a certain degree of autonomy for any particular underwater mission to fulfil the mission objectives successfully and ensure its safety in all stages of the mission in a large scale operating filed. In this paper, a novel combinatorial conflict-free-task assignment strategy consisting an interactive engagement of a local path planner and an adaptive global route planner, is introduced. The method is established upon the heuristic search potency of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to address the discrete nature of routing-task assignment approach and the complexity of NP-hard path planning problem. The proposed hybrid method, is highly efficient for having a reactive guidance framework that guarantees successful completion of missions specifically in cluttered environments. To examine the performance of the method in a context of mission productivity, mission time management and vehicle safety, a series of simulation studies are undertaken. The results of simulations declare that the proposed method is reliable and robust, particularly in dealing with uncertainties, and it can significantly enhance the level of vehicle's autonomy by relying on its reactive nature and capability of providing fast feasible solutions. Keywords-Autonomous underwater vehicles, Path planning, Route planning, Autonomy, Evolutionary optimization 1. Introduction Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have been discovered as the most cost-effective and expedient technology over the past and coming years. Recent breakthroughs in computer systems and sensor technologies have greatly expanded the range of missions to be performed by AUVs in the past years. This widening operating range, however, is intertwined with the appearance of new complexities, for instance propagation of uncertainty and accumulation of data, crystalizing the underwater mission into a challenging scenario. Increasing the mission productivity and ensuring the vehicles safety are two main concepts that should be satisfied in all stages of the mission considering dynamic changes of environment. Hence, vehicle needs a certain degree of autonomy to perform efficacious and safe operation in such a severe environment. An efficient motion planning strategy is a requisite to reach a satisfactory level of autonomy toward accomplishing underwater mission objectives. Efficient routing strategy promotes vehicles capability in task priority assignment, mission time management, and increasing mission productivity, while real-time local path planner is capable of satisfying safe and optimal deployment in uncertain, dynamic, and cluttered ocean environments. Respectively, the previous attempts in this scope can be divided into two main categories of vehicles optimum path planning along with the vehicle routing and task scheduling approaches.
ArXiv, 2016
Providing a higher level of decision autonomy is a true challenge in development of today AUVs and promotes a single vehicle to accomplish multiple tasks in a single mission as well as accompanying prompt changes of a turbulent and highly uncertain environment, which has not been completely attained yet. The proceeding approach builds on recent researches toward constructing a comprehensive structure for AUV mission planning, routing, task-time managing and synchronic online motion planning adaptive to sudden changes of the time variant environment. Respectively, an "Autonomous Reactive Mission Scheduling and Path Planning" (ARMSP) architecture is constructed in this paper and a bunch of evolutionary algorithms are employed by different layers of the proposed control architecture to investigate the efficiency of the structure toward handling addressed objectives and prove stability of its performance in real-time mission task-time-threat management regardless of the applie...
Optimal Route Planning with Prioritized Task Scheduling for AUV Missions
arXiv (Cornell University), 2016
This paper presents a solution to Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) large scale route planning and task assignment joint problem. Given a set of constraints (e.g., time) and a set of task priority values, the goal is to find the optimal route for underwater mission that maximizes the sum of the priorities and minimizes the total risk percentage while meeting the given constraints. Making use of the heuristic nature of genetic and swarm intelligence algorithms in solving NP-hard graph problems, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) are employed to find the optimum solution, where each individual in the population is a candidate solution (route). To evaluate the robustness of the proposed methods, the performance of the all PS and GA algorithms are examined and compared for a number of Monte Carlo runs. Simulation results suggest that the routes generated by both algorithms are feasible and reliable enough, and applicable for underwater motion planning. However, the GA-based route planner produces superior results comparing to the results obtained from the PSO based route planner.
Journal of Marine Science and Application, 2018
Robust and efficient AUV path planning is a key element for persistence AUV maneuvering in variable underwater environments. To develop such a path planning system, in this study, differential evolution (DE) algorithm is employed. The performance of the DEbased planner in generating time-efficient paths to direct the AUV from its initial conditions to the target of interest is investigated within a complexed 3D underwater environment incorporated with turbulent current vector fields, coastal area, islands, and static/dynamic obstacles. The results of simulations indicate the inherent efficiency of the DEbased path planner as it is capable of extracting feasible areas of a real map to determine the allowed spaces for the vehicle deployment while coping undesired current disturbances, exploiting desirable currents, and avoiding collision boundaries in directing the vehicle to its destination. The results are implementable for a realistic scenario and on-board real AUV as the DE planner satisfies all vehicular and environmental constraints while minimizing the travel time/distance, in a computationally efficient manner.
ArXiv, 2016
The AUV three-dimension path planning in complex turbulent underwater environment is investigated in this research, in which static current map data and uncertain static-moving time variant obstacles are taken into account. Robustness of AUVs path planning to this strong variability is known as a complex NP-hard problem and is considered a critical issue to ensure vehicles safe deployment. Efficient evolutionary techniques have substantial potential of handling NP hard complexity of path planning problem as more powerful and fast algorithms among other approaches for mentioned problem. For the purpose of this research Differential Evolution (DE) technique is conducted to solve the AUV path planning problem in a realistic underwater environment. The path planners designed in this paper are capable of extracting feasible areas of a real map to determine the allowed spaces for deployment, where coastal area, islands, static/dynamic obstacles and ocean current is taken into account and ...
Toward efficient task assignment and motion planning for large-scale underwater missions
International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, 2016
An autonomous underwater vehicle needs to possess a certain degree of autonomy for any particular underwater mission to fulfil the mission objectives successfully and ensure its safety in all stages of the mission in a large-scale operating field. In this article, a novel combinatorial conflict-free task assignment strategy, consisting of an interactive engagement of a local path planner and an adaptive global route planner, is introduced. The method takes advantage of the heuristic search potency of the particle swarm optimization algorithm to address the discrete nature of routing-task assignment approach and the complexity of nondeterministic polynomial-time-hard path planning problem. The proposed hybrid method is highly efficient as a consequence of its reactive guidance framework that guarantees successful completion of missions particularly in cluttered environments. To examine the performance of the method in a context of mission productivity, mission time management, and ve...
Journal of Marine Science and Application, 2016
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are capable of spending long periods of time for carrying out various underwater missions and marine tasks. In this paper, a novel conflict-free motion planning framework is introduced to enhance underwater vehicle's mission performance by completing maximum number of highest priority tasks in a limited time through a large scale waypoint cluttered operating field, and ensuring safe deployment during the mission. The proposed combinatorial route-path planner model takes the advantages of the biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm toward satisfying objectives of both higher-lower level motion planners and guarantees maximization of the mission productivity for a single vehicle operation. The performance of the model is investigated under different scenarios including the particular cost constraints in time-varying operating fields. To show the reliability of the proposed model, performance of each motion planner assessed separately and then statistical analysis is undertaken to evaluate the total performance of the entire model. The simulation results indicate the stability of the contributed model and its feasible application for real experiments.
Biogeography-Based Combinatorial Strategy for Efficient AUV Motion Planning and Task-Time Management
2016
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are capable of spending long periods of time for carrying out various underwater missions and marine tasks. In this paper, a novel conflict-free motion planning framework is introduced to enhance underwater vehicle's mission performance by completing maximum number of highest priority tasks in a limited time through a large scale waypoint cluttered operating field, and ensuring safe deployment during the mission. The proposed combinatorial route-path planner model takes the advantages of the biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm toward satisfying objectives of both higher-lower level motion planners and guarantees maximization of the mission productivity for a single vehicle operation. The performance of the model is investigated under different scenarios including the particular cost constraints in time-varying operating fields. To show the reliability of the proposed model, performance of each motion planner assessed separately a...