MAS 01 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Path Planning and Navigation Based upon Ocean Model Predictions

MAS 01.1 Overview Trajectory design for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is of great importance to the oceanographic research community. Intelligent planning is required to maneuver a vehicle to selected locations to collect data with scientific merit. This planning is not only determining how to get from one point to another, but also in determining which locations should to be visited to best understand the feature under investigation. In this study, we examine the use of ocean model predictions to determine the locations to be visited by an AUV, and aid in planning the trajectory that the vehicle executes during the sampling mission. The objectives are: a) to provide near-real time, in situ measurements to a large-scale ocean model to increase the skill of future predictions, b) to utilize ocean model predictions as a component in an end-to-end autonomous prediction and tasking system for aquatic, mobile sensor networks, and c) to investigate the impact of utilizing ocean model predictions in the trajectory design for autonomous underwater gliders to improve their navigational accuracy.