Application of A* algorithm for real-time path re-planning of an unmanned surface vehicle avoiding underwater obstacles

This paper describes path re-planning techniques andunderwater obstacle avoidance for unmanned surface vehicle （USV）based on multi-beam forward looking sonar （FLS）. Near-optimalpaths in static and dynamic environments with underwaterobstacles are computed using a numerical solution procedure basedon an A algorithm. The USV is modeled with a circular shape in 2degrees of freedom （surge and yaw）. In this paper, two-dimensional（2-D） underwater obstacle avoidance and the robust real-time pathre-planning technique for actual USV using multi-beam FLS aredeveloped. Our real-time path re-planning algorithm has beentested to regenerate the optimal path for several updated frames inthe field of view of the sonar with a proper update frequency of theFLS. The performance of the proposed method was verifiedthrough simulations, and sea experiments. For simulations, theUSV model can avoid both a single stationary obstacle, multiplestationary obstacles and moving obstacles with the near-optimaltrajectory that are performed both in the vehicle and the worldreference frame. For sea experiments, the proposed method for anunderwater obstacle avoidance system is implemented with a USVtest platform. The actual USV is automatically controlled andsucceeded in its real-time avoidance against the stationary underseaobstacle in the field of view of the FLS together with the GlobalPositioning System （GPS） of the USV.