Advances in Line-of-Sight Guidance for Path Following of Autonomous Marine Vehicles: An Overview

• Published in: IEEE transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics. Systems Vol. 53; no. 1; pp. 12 - 28
• Main Authors: Gu, Nan, Wang, Dan, Peng, Zhouhua, Wang, Jun, Han, Qing-Long
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.01.2023; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 2-D/3-D path following; Acoustic measurements; Attitude control; autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs); Autonomous underwater vehicles; autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs); Critical components; Current measurement; Guidance (motion); Kinematics; Line of sight; line-of-sight (LOS) guidance; Marine resources; Motion control; Sea measurements; Sea surface; Trajectory planning; Underwater vehicles
• ISSN: 2168-2216; 2168-2232
• DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2022.3162862

Autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs), including autonomous surface and underwater vehicles, are versatile means to explore, exploit, monitor, and protect marine resources and environments. Motion control is a fundamental enabling technique for state-of-the-art AMV development. Especially, guidance is a critical component in AMV motion control. In recent years, line-of-sight (LOS) guidance, as an efficient guidance method, has attracted tremendous interest from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In this paper, an overview of recent advances in LOS guidance for AMV path following is provided. First, a control objective for the path following of an AMV with a kinematic model is specified. Next, major LOS guidance laws for path following are reviewed in detail. Then, LOS guidance laws applicable to coordinated path following of multiple AMVs are elaborated. Finally, six challenging issues for future research are addressed.