Page 7 - Read Online
P. 7
Zhu et al. Intell Robot 2022;2(3):200222 Intelligence & Robotics
DOI: 10.20517/ir.2022.13
Review Open Access
Motion planning and tracking control of unmanned un-
derwater vehicles: technologies, challenges and prospects
Danjie Zhu, Tao Yan, Simon X. Yang
School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada.
Correspondence to: Prof. Simon X. Yang, Advanced Robotics & Intelligent Systems (ARIS) Laboratory, School of Engineering,
University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada. E-mail: syang@uoguelph.ca
How to cite this article: Zhu D, Yan T, Yang SX. Motion planning and tracking control of unmanned underwater vehicles: technolo-
gies, challenges and prospects. Intell Robot 2022;2(2):xx. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/ir.2022.13
Received: 7 May 2022 First Decision: 27 May 2022 Revised: 15 Jun 2022 Accepted: 30 Jun 2022 Published: 8 Jul 2022
Academic Editor: Jianjun Ni, Mien Van Copy Editor: Jia-Xin Zhang Production Editor: Jia-Xin Zhang
Abstract
The motion planning and tracking control techniques of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) are fundamentally sig-
nificant for efficient and robust UUV navigation, which is crucial for underwater rescue, facility maintenance, marine
resource exploration, aquatic recreation, etc. Studies on UUV motion planning and tracking control have been grow-
ing rapidly worldwide, which are usually sorted into the following topics: task assignment of the multi-UUV system,
UUV path planning, and UUV trajectory tracking. This paper provides a comprehensive review of conventional and
intelligent technologies for motion planning and tracking control of UUVs. Analysis of the benefits and drawbacks
of these various methodologies in literature is presented. In addition, the challenges and prospects of UUV motion
planning and tracking control are provided as possible developments for future research.
Keywords: Unmanned underwater vehicles, motion planning, path planning, task assignment, tracking control
1. INTRODUCTION
More attention has been concentrated on underwater navigation this century due to the abundant resources
[1]
buried in the deep-sea area, such as biological, mineral, and space resources . Therefore, underwater vehicles
(UV) have been applied due to their adaptiveness and safety when exploring undersea environments. The
vehicle can tackle the problems of hardly -predictable obstacles, current flow, and hydraulic pressure as well as
provide longer operating time and more functions than human divers [2,3] .
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, shar
ing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long as you
give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate
if changes were made.
www.intellrobot.com
