Multiple Region Coverage Path Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

Coverage path planning methodology for an autonomous underwater vehicle to search multiple non-overlapping regions has been proposed in the paper. The proposed methodology is based on the genetic algorithm (GA). The GA used in the proposed methodology has been tuned for the specific problem, using design of experiment on an equivalent travelling salesman problem benchmark instance. Optimality of the generated paths was analysed through simulation studies. Results indicated that the proposed methodology generated shorter paths in comparison to conventional methods.