Long-Range Route-planning for Autonomous Vehicles in the Polar Oceans

TL;DR

This paper develops a route-planning method enabling autonomous underwater vehicles to efficiently navigate long distances in polar ice conditions, reducing human intervention and environmental impact.

Contribution

It introduces a novel long-range route-planning approach tailored for AUVs in polar environments, accounting for dynamic ice conditions.

Findings

Efficient ice-avoiding routes can be planned for long-distance AUV missions.

The method reduces reliance on human piloting and lowers carbon emissions.

Successful simulation results demonstrate practical applicability.

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for piloted autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to operate in polar ice conditions. At present, AUVs are deployed from ships and directly human-piloted in these regions, entailing a high carbon cost and limiting the scope of operations. A key requirement for long-term autonomous missions is a long-range route planning capability that is aware of the changing ice conditions. In this paper we address the problem of automating long-range route-planning for AUVs operating in the Southern Ocean. We present the route-planning method and results showing that efficient, ice-avoiding, long-distance traverses can be planned.