Route Planning and Tracking for Ships Based on the ECDIS Platform

Automatic route planning and tracking control are important for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). This study presents a final-optimized A* (FO A*) algorithm for automatic route planning of USVs and designs a nonlinear tracking controller to ensure that the ship navigates on the route. Ship domain theory is employed in the FO A* algorithm to ensure that the planning route is far from shorelines and reefs. Meanwhile, water depth is used to determine the safety area in the search process. The nonlinear feedback algorithm is also applied to reduce the rudder angle when the ship tracks the planning route in wind and waves. Finally, the proposed algorithms are well validated on the ship-based Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS). The experiment shows that the FO A* algorithm and the nonlinear tracking controller are effective and deterministic for route planning offline. It can be put into navigation practice, which will make some contribution in accelerating the USV development.