The routing problem of autonomous underwater vehicles in ocean currents

This paper considers a novel algorithm for the routing problem of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in order to deliver customized sensor packages to mission targets at scattered positions. We aim to utilize a set of AUVs to serve all the targets for exactly once on the premise of individual limited sensor packages loading ability while guaranteeing the least total energy cost in the presence of ocean currents. The main idea of the algorithm is based on the decomposition of the initial routing problem into two subproblems: the assignment of targets and the generation of sub-path between the targets. We present an integrated mission assignment and path planning algorithm which is proposed by combing the branch and bound method and a velocity synthesis approach. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are verified by simulation results.