混合模拟退火与粒子群优化算法的无人艇路径规划

针对水面无人艇路径规划中单独使用模拟退火算法存在的不足,以提高无人艇在执行任务时的安全性为研究目的,解决传统无人艇在航行中未考虑来往船只而导致的碰撞危险,提出了模拟退火算法与粒子群算法相结合的混合路径规划算法,利用该算法的高收敛性和容易跳出局部最优等特点,结合避碰规则,实现海事无人艇在同一静态环境下对遇、交叉和追越三种会遇局面的最优路径规划。仿真结果表明:本文提出的算法可以实现无人艇在复杂水域条件下快速路径规划,使与他船的自动避碰行为成为可能,给出的路径规划具有可行、有效,能够为无人艇安全的航行、顺利的执行任务提供保障。     

一种用于水下无人航行器的局部避碰路径规划方法研究

研究水下无人航行器(UUV)的局部自动避碰路径规划,对人工势场法和速度障碍法进行改进, 提出一种在三维空间重新分配斥力的方法,联合应用人工势场法和速度障碍法,建立人工模拟势场求得合力, 通过合力的方向指引水下无人航行器航行,完成对动态静态障碍物的避让。仿真结果表明：该方法能有效在动静态混合环境下完成避碰,且平滑处理后的路径更符合水下无人航行器实际航行避碰操纵控制要求。     

基于RRT和DWA的欠驱动UUV路径规划

针对无人潜航器(UUV)在未知水下复杂环境的路径规划问题，设计了随机树以及动态窗口的融合算法。该算法基于快速扩展随机树(RRT)以及动态窗口(DWA)两层规划设计，第一层利用随机树算法快速规划出全局路径，在此基础上第二层加载全局路径，针对 UUV 模型的欠驱动和非线性，利用动态窗口算法完成局部路径规划，保证约束条件下 UUV 路径的安全性。通过融合参数 μ 修正内外框架的融合度，有效地弥补了全局路径算法的无法躲避动态障碍物的缺点以及局部路径算法全局能力低下的问题。最后，通过对比仿真验证了融合算法相比于随机树全局算法和动态窗口局部算法的优越性。     

基于RBF-MPC的水下机器人避碰控制

水下机器人避碰控制是自主作业的重要基础,但复杂的约束条件和模型的不精确性增加了避障路径跟踪的技术难度。在传统模型预测控制的基础上,结合作业场景多种约束条件,引入径向基函数神经网络,提出了一种水平面避碰控制方法。首先,采用径向基神经网络建立误差补偿函数,提高传统动力学预测模型精度;然后,结合避碰路径跟踪控制,在滚动优化环节选取性能指标函数,并显式引入障碍物、执行机构与控制稳定性等约束条件;最后,通过仿真试验证明该方法能够控制水下机器人跟踪避碰路径实现水平面内障碍物规避。     

基于分区自适应阈值的声呐障碍物检测算法研究

针对UUV避碰声呐探测障碍物过程中自主选择分割阈值进行障碍物检测的问题,提出了基于分区自适应阈值的障碍物检测算法。首先将避碰声呐图像均匀分为相同大小的图像块,对每个图像块基于最大类间方差算法确定该区域障碍物图像分割的高低阈值,然后对检测到的障碍物进行形态学处理去除孤立噪声点,对目标区域进行连通性分析及内部空洞处理,最终得到完整的障碍物轮廓信息。通过湖试数据验证表明了该方法对声呐障碍物检测的有效性。     

定位精度优化驱动的水下无人平台航路规划方法

航路规划指在有障碍物的环境中,为无人平台规划出无碰撞的最优路径。以水下定位为任务的航路规划为水下无人平台规划出高定位精度指标的最优路径,对于提高水下无人平台的工作效率至关重要。 传统的水下无人平台航路规划主要基于人工势场法、蚁群法、遗传算法等,在这些算法中主要考虑的是避障问题,而没有充分考虑载荷任务,因此任务执行效率低。特别是对于水下定位任务,由于定位精度受到航路影响较大,因此需要对定位精度进行优化。针对这一问题,结合人工势场法与定位精度,提出了一种定位精度优化驱动的水下无人平台航路规划方法,实现了对避障能力与定位任务能力的兼顾,提高了基于水下无人平台的定位精度。     

一种基于改进蚁群算法的载人潜水器全局路径规划

当前关于使用蚁群算法解决载人潜水器路径规划问题的研究,往往只注重路径的长度和算法收敛速度,容易忽略路径点与障碍物之间的距离和路径的平滑度等要素。载人潜水器过于靠近障碍物航行时容易产生碰撞;按照不平滑路径行驶时,频繁地转向会降低航行效率。为解决这些问题,受人工势场法启发,文中在蚁群算法的概率选择环节引入障碍物惩罚因子φ和转向惩罚因子ψ,对路径点的选择加以限制。仿真测试表明,相比于传统蚁群算法和Dijkstra算法,该算法规划的路径与障碍物之间保持安全距离且转向次数更少,因此载人潜水器按照此路径航行时,安全性和航行效率更高。     

自主水下航行器离散反馈避碰设计及仿真

为了使自主水下航行器(AUV)避碰仿真更接近实际情况,在离散时间系统中考虑海流作用,设计了AUV反馈避碰算法.针对海底探测AUV的运行特点,考虑海流作用,建立AUV垂直平面的状态空间方程.在每一个离散时间节点.利用障碍物高度信息,计算下一时刻AUV的深度目标值.然后利用反馈控制方法对其响应,在仿真时间内不断循环完成避碰仿真.对不同流场下不同高度的矩形障碍物,进行了避碰仿真.仿真结果证明了系统的可行性和合理性.     

基于无人船的水质监测及控制系统设计

针对执行水质监测任务过程中固定浮标监测站单点监测存在局限性、船载观测人员取样耗时耗力等问题,本文设计了一种搭载多点、分层自动采水取样装置的智能无人船水质监测系统,可实现目标水域的多点、分层连续水质数据测量及取样。该智能无人船具备基于快速随机树(Rapid Random Tree)算法的自主避障和快速路径规划功能,解决了现有无人船技术存在的多障碍自主路径规划难等问题。同时,本设计结合了ARM9控制芯片、M5310无线传输模块,通过可视化的显示界面和远程WEB访问的功能,大大提升了科研人员及时处理特殊情况便捷性。通过实验测试及比对分析,证明本设计具有智能高效、稳定可靠等优点,能够满足职能部门对于水质监测工作的需要。     

基于强化学习的自动帆船路径规划算法研究

作为自动水面航行器的重要分支之一,自动航行帆船在执行长期海事任务时具有低能耗的优势,但其航行过程受到环境因素的影响很大。针对以上情况,本文考虑了自动帆船的自身运动模型,以及在航行时受到的海风、海流和障碍物的影响,提出了自动帆船从起始点至目标点的路径规划算法。该算法通过帆船的平面运动模型来计算环境因素的影响,再通过强化学习中的Q-learning算法实现对于海上两点间的路径规划并同时实现规避障碍物。通过仿真实验证明了本文提出的自动航行帆船的路径规划算法是可行的。     

Radar-based collision avoidance for unmanned surface vehicles

Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) have become a focus of research because of their extensive applications. To ensure safety and reliability and to perform complex tasks autonomously, USVs are required to possess accurate perception of the environment and effective collision avoidance capabilities. To achieve these, investigation into realtime marine radar target detection and autonomous collision avoidance technologies is required, aiming at solving the problems of noise jamming, uneven brightness, target loss, and blind areas in marine radar images. These technologies should also satisfy the requirements of real-time and reliability related to high navigation speeds of USVs. Therefore, this study developed an embedded collision avoidance system based on the marine radar, investigated a highly real-time target detection method which contains adaptive smoothing algorithm and robust segmentation algorithm, developed a stable and reliable dynamic local environment model to ensure the safety of USV navigation, and constructed a collision avoidance algorithm based on velocity obstacle (V-obstacle) which adjusts the USV’s heading and speed in real-time. Sea trials results in multi-obstacle avoidance firstly demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed avoidance system, and then verify its great adaptability and relative stability when a USV sailing in a real and complex marine environment. The obtained results will improve the intelligent level of USV and guarantee the safety of USV independent sailing.     

Multi-Behavior Fusion Based Potential Field Method for Path Planning of Unmanned Surface Vessel

The problem of the unmanned surface vessel(USV) path planning in static and dynamic obstacle environments is addressed in this paper. Multi-behavior fusion based potential field method is proposed, which contains three behaviors: goal-seeking, boundary-memory following and dynamic-obstacle avoidance. Then, different activation conditions are designed to determine the current behavior. Meanwhile, information on the positions, velocities and the equation of motion for obstacles are detected and calculated by sensor data. Besides, memory information is introduced into the boundary following behavior to enhance cognition capability for the obstacles, and avoid local minima problem caused by the potential field method. Finally, the results of theoretical analysis and simulation show that the collision-free path can be generated for USV within different obstacle environments, and further validated the performance and effectiveness of the presented strategy.     

Layered berthing method and experiment of unmanned surface vehicle based on multiple constraints analysis

Considering the dynamic changes of unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in berthing tasks, the planning and control modes are divided into two phases: the remote phase and the terminal phase. According to the main influencing factors of the two phases, an improved artificial potential field method is proposed to complete autonomous berthing trajectory planning based on the analysis of environment constraint, berth point constraint and USV’s dynamics constraint. Combining with the dynamic characteristics and control objectives at different phases of berthing and analyzing the fuzzy rule regulation strategy of USV’s heading and speed control, an improved adaptive fuzzy PID control method is proposed to solve the control problem of USV, which is influenced by weak maneuver, large disturbance, limited water area and strong shore effect. Finally, the comparative test of berthing simulation verifies the superiority of the proposed control method. The autonomous berthing field experiment is completed based on the "Dolphin-I" small USV. It verifies the validity and feasibility of the proposed autonomous berthing method.     

A task-based hierarchical control strategy for autonomous motion of an unmanned surface vehicle swarm

In this paper, a hierarchical control framework with relevant algorithms is proposed to achieve autonomous navigation for an underactuated unmanned surface vehicle (USV) swarm. In order to implement automatic target tracking, obstacle avoidance and avoid collisions between group members, the control framework is divided into three layers based on task assignments: flocking strategy design, motion planning and control input design. The flocking strategy design transmits some basic orders to swarm members. Motion planning applies the potential function method and then improves it; thus, the issue of autonomous control is transformed into one of designing the velocity vector. In the last layer, the control inputs (surge force and yaw moment) are designed using the sliding mode method, and the problem of underactuation is handled synchronously. The proposed closed-loop controller is shown to be semi-asymptotically stable by applying Lyapunov stability theory, and the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated via numeric simulations of a homogeneous USV swarm.     

Parallel trajectory planning for shipborne Autonomous collision avoidance system

Collision at sea is always a significant issue affecting the safety of ship navigation. The shipborne autonomous collision avoidance system (SACAS) has the great advantage to minimize collision accidents in ship navigation. A parallel trajectory planning architecture is proposed in this paper for SACAS system. The fully-coupled deliberative planner based on the modified RRT algorithm is developed to search for optimal global trajectory in a low re-planning frequency. The fully-coupled reactive planner based on the modified DW algorithm is developed to generate the optimal local trajectory in a high re-planning frequency to counteract the unexpected behavior of dynamic obstacles in the vicinity of the vessel. The obstacle constraints, ship maneuvering constraints, COLREGs rules, trajectory optimality, and real-time requirements are satisfied simultaneously in both global and local planning to ensure the collision-free optimal navigation in compliance with COLREGs rules. The on-water tests of a trimaran model equipped with a model-scale SACAS system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm. The good balance between the computational efficiency and trajectory optimality is achieved in parallel trajectory planning.     

Trajectory-cell based method for the unmanned surface vehicle motion planning

A trajectory-cell based method was proposed for unmanned surface vehicle (USV) motion planning to combine the expression of the dynamic constraints and the discretization of the search space. The dynamic constraints were expressed by the USV trajectories produced by the mathematical model. The search space was performed by the discretization rules with the consideration of the path continuity, the search convenience and the maneuvering simplification. Therefore, the trajectory-cells were the discretized trajectories, which made the search space meet the USV dynamic constraints, and guaranteed the final spliced path continuous. After abstracting the characteristics of those cells, the available waypoints and headings were represented as the search indexes. Finally, a trajectory-cell based path searching strategy was proposed by determining the cost function of the A* algorithm. The results showed that the proposed algorithm can plan a practical motion path for the USV.     

Model-free adaptive control method with variable forgetting factor for unmanned surface vehicle control

We present a new type of model-free adaptive control (MFAC) method based on an adaptive forgetting factor for unmanned surface vehicle (USV) heading control under uncertain influence. Firstly, we analyze the compact form dynamic linearization based MFAC (CFDL-MFAC) method and its main problems with regard to USV heading control. Secondly, in order to address the problems of overshoot, oscillation, and slow convergence of the heading control with the MFAC method and considering the dynamics of the USV heading control subsystem, we introduce an adaptive forgetting factor into the CFDL-MFAC to arrive at the CFDL-MFAC with variable forgetting factor (CFDL-MFAC-VFF) method. Our simulation studies show that the CFDL-MFAC-VFF method yields low overshoot and low oscillations and is insensitive to changes in the system parameters and output error. Finally, our field experiments with the small USV “Dolphin-I” demonstrate the effectiveness and engineering practicability of our proposed method.     

Automatic collision avoidance of multiple ships based on deep Q-learning

As the number of ships for marine transportation increases with the globalisation of the world economy, waterways are becoming more congested than before. This situation will raise the risk of collision of the ships; hence, an automatic collision avoidance system needs to be developed. In this paper, a novel approach based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is proposed for automatic collision avoidance of multiple ships particularly in restricted waters. A training method and algorithms for collision avoidance of ships, incorporating ship manoeuvrability, human experience and navigation rules, are presented in detail. The proposed approach is investigated not only by numerical simulations but also by model experiments using three self-propelled ships. Through the systematic numerical and experimental validation, it is demonstrated the developed approach based on the DRL has great possibility for realising automatic collision avoidance of ships in highly complicated navigational situations.