Path Planning of Coastal Ships Based on Improved Hybrid A-Star

The path planning of ships along the coast is a key topic in the field of shipping and is the core basis for the intelligent development of ships. As a well developed algorithm for path planning, the Hybrid A-star algorithm is time-efficient and economical. However, in the marine sector, the proximity of the planned paths to obstacles makes it too dangerous to be used in a practical environment. To tackle the problem, this paper proposes an improved Hybrid A-star algorithm for path planning of coastal ships. The method, on the one hand solves the problem of planning path close to obstacles by introducing repulsive gain to ensure the safety of the planned path, on the other hand introduces gravitational gain to speed up the planning of the path and ensure the timeliness of the path planning. In addition, as the actual navigation of the ship requires the path to have no curves and as few turning points as possible, this paper designs a method of path optimization. By compressing waypoints and eliminating redundant turning points, the method further improves the economy and safety of the planned paths, making the final optimized paths fit the actual navigation requirements of the ship. The results of the simulation experiments show that the path planned by this method outperforms other algorithms in terms of economy, safety and time.