Effects of rotors on UUV trajectory planning via the virtual potentials method

A method for the trajectory planning of coordinated groups of UUVs, developed in authors´ previous work is extended. The key points within the design patterns that must be used to implement the method in code are stressed. Rotors, vectorized quantities which introduce directionality, and thereby cause divergence from local minima, are introduced into the virtual potential algorithm. This development is compared with the strategy for local minima avoidance previously employed by the authors. Testing is done by simulation and comparison of simulated system responses.