Planning an interesting path

Faruq, Abdullah Ali (2017) Planning an interesting path. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (2MB)

Abstract

Terrain aided navigation (TAN) is a well-studied method to localize an autonomous underwater vehicle in the absence of GPS. Researchers have been exploring new improvements; in particular Bachmayer and Claus have been incorporating terrain based navigation (glider TAN) into the Slocum gliders. To take full advantage of glider TAN, the glider path should favour areas of the ocean with uneven depth and unique features. This leads to a question of planning such an "interesting" path for the glider. In this thesis, we present an offline path planning algorithm that optimizes the distance under the maximum uncertainty constraint. A major part of our contribution is developing a rating technique for evaluating the usefulness of an area of the ocean floor for reducing the uncertainty of the glider’s position. We include experimental results showing how the generated path varies with the maximum allowable uncertainty, based on the ocean elevation data of the Conception Bay near Holyrood, Newfoundland.

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