Path planning on satellite images for unmanned surface vehicles

In recent years, the development of autonomous surface vehicles has been a field of increasing research interest. There are two major areas in this field: control theory and path planning. This study focuses on path planning, and two objectives are discussed: path planning for Unmanned Surface Vehic...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Joe-Ming Yang, Chien-Ming Tseng, P.S. Tseng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2015-01-01
Series:International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2092678216301030
Description
Summary:In recent years, the development of autonomous surface vehicles has been a field of increasing research interest. There are two major areas in this field: control theory and path planning. This study focuses on path planning, and two objectives are discussed: path planning for Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) and implementation of path planning in a real map. In this paper, satellite thermal images are converted into binary images which are used as the maps for the Finite Angle A * algorithm (FAA *), an advanced A * algorithm that is used to determine safer and suboptimal paths for USVs. To plan a collision-free path, the algorithm proposed in this article considers the dimensions of surface vehicles. Furthermore, the turning ability of a surface vehicle is also considered, and a constraint condition is introduced to improve the quality of the path planning algorithm, which makes the traveled path smoother. This study also shows a path planning experiment performed on a real satellite thermal image, and the path planning results can be used by an USV
ISSN:2092-6782