Complete coverage path planning for autonomous marine vehicle used in multi-bay areas

When using autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs) collecting seabed or hydrologicaldata, the algorithm of simple zigzag complete traversal path planning easily leads to repeated search regions and missed search regions in multi-bay ocean environment. This paper presents the environment expression concepts of repeated bay and missed bay with their points of entry, exit, and gateway. By modifying the simple zigzag complete traversal path planning algorithm using repeated-bay searching behavior and missed-bay searching behavior based on the those environment expression concepts, the new algorithm effectively reduces the area of the repeated search regions and the missed search regions for AMVs in complete traversal tasks. The efficiency and low energy consumption of the modified algorithms were tested for complete traversal path planning by computer simulation, which simulated an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with known resistance characteristic in a gridding search area with a constant current velocity and flow distribution. Finally, the energy saving property and practicability of the modified algorithm were tested for complete traversal path planning on an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in the lake