Multiple Moving Obstacles Avoidance for USV using Velocity Obstacle Method

This paper presents a collision avoidance algorithm for unmanned surface vehicle (USV) in dynamic and complex environments. This algorithm is based on Velocity Obstacle (VO), which generates a collision cone (CC) in the velocity space. In open water, it is encouraged for USV to avoid collision by changing its heading rather than changing its speed. Therefore, the proposed approach tries to keep the speed of USV unchanged by comparing the current velocity of USV and collision cone of each obstacle to calculate all safe headings. Then USV turns to a safe heading selected by current collision situation. Furthermore, the deviation is compensated when USV changing its heading to improve the success rate of collision avoidance. Compared to other path planning algorithms, the proposed algorithm improves the calculation speed of collision avoidance algorithm without iterative process. Results of simulation experiment have shown that the proposed algorithm has less heading transformation times and high success rate in the complex collision avoidance situation with multiple moving obstacles.