关键词: 自主式水下机器人, 路径规划, 蚁群算法, 启发函数, 路径消耗

Abstract: An improved ant colony algorithm for global path planning is proposed for the three-dimensional obstacle avoidance optimal path problem of autonomous underwater vehicle under seabed topography. A simple and effective modeling scheme for three-dimensional seabed environment is presented in this paper. In order to improve the insufficiency of the basic ant colony algorithm in practical application, the heuristic function is designed based on global information, and the local and global combination of pheromone updating mode is used to overcome the shortcomings of slow convergence rate and easy to fall into local optimum, which improves the global optimization ability of the algorithm. The length and the smoothness of the path are used as the evaluation function to reduce the path consumption and make the algorithm more practical engineering significance. Simulation results show that the algorithm is effective in large scale seabed environment.

Key words: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle（AUV）, path planning, ant colony algorithm, heuristic function, path consumption