Review of Collision Avoidance and Path Planning Algorithms Used in Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

The rapid technological development of computing power and system operations today allows for increasingly advanced algorithm implementation, as well as path planning in real time. The objective of this article is to provide a structured review of simulations and practical implementations of collision-avoidance and path-planning algorithms in autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The novelty of the review paper is to consider not only the results of numerical research but also the newest results of verifying collision-avoidance and path-planning algorithms in real applications together with a comparison of the difficulties encountered during simulations and their practical implementation. Analysing the last 20 years of AUV development, it can be seen that experiments in a real environment are dominated by classical methods. In the case of simulation studies, artificial intelligence (AI) methods are used as often as classical methods. In simulation studies, the APF approach is most often used among classical methods, whereas among AI algorithms reinforcement learning and fuzzy logic methods are used. For real applications, the most used approach is reactive behaviors, and AI algorithms are rarely used in real implementations. Finally, this article provides a general summary, future works, and a discussion of the limitations that inhibit the further development in this field.