An Improved Path Planning Algorithm for Heterogeneous Marine Unmanned Systems

To improve the obstacle avoidance capability of agents and ensure reliable communication during the path following of heterogeneous marine unmanned systems, a dynamic safety area and communication distance constraint based path planning algorithm is proposed in this paper where the communication distance constraint is considered. Firstly, the dynamic safety area is constructed based on the relative velocity between agents and the dynamic obstacles to realize obstacle avoidance. Secondly, the reachable area of agents is determined according to the communication distance constraint such that the heterogeneous marine unmanned system maintains a high quality of communication during the path following. Finally, the communication constraint center switching algorithm is proposed to meet the communication distance constraint in different sea scenes. Numerical simulations are performed to show that the proposed path planning algorithm achieves strong communication connectivity during the path following of the agents in the heterogeneous marine unmanned system.