Two novel approaches for unmanned underwater vehicle path planning: constrained optimisation and semi-infinite constrained optimisation

In this paper, two novel approaches to unmanned underwater vehicle path pla nning are presented. The main idea of the first approach, referred to as Co nstrained Optimisation (CO) is to represent the free space of the workspace as a set of inequality constraints using vehicle configuration variables. The second approach converts robot path planning into a Semi-infinite Const rained Optimisation (SCO) problem. The function interpolation technique is adopted to satisfy the start and goal configuration requirements. Mathemati cal foundations for Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG), Boolean operations a nd approximation techniques are also presented to reduce the number of cons traints, and to avoid local minima. The advantages of these approaches are that the mature techniques developed in optimisation theory which guarantee convergence, efficiency and numerical robustness can be directly applied t o the robot path planning problem. Simulation results have been presented.