Three dimensional D* Lite path planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle under partly unknown environment

For the underwater environment, path planning is a fundamental issue for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). In order to solve AUV path planning problem in the three dimensional space, a heuristic search method called D∗Lite is introduced for its character of quick replanning since underwater environment is not completely known. Firstly, some basic introduction of path planning and three dimensional underwater environment modelling is presented. Then, the basic idea of D∗Lite algorithm is given and introduced for AUV path planning. Finally, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, simulation results are given in this paper. It can be concluded that for the 3D path planning problem of AUV, D∗Lite algorithm can reach a quick replanning result for unexpected obstacles.