Path planning for autonomous inland vessels using A*BG

Abstract

To meet the transportation demand and maintain sustainable development, many countries are aiming to promote the competitive position of inland waterway shipping in the transport system. Autonomous transport is seen as a possibility for maritime transport to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. In realizing autonomous navigation, path planning plays an important role. Being the most widely used path planning algorithm for robotics and land-based vehicles, in this paper we analyze A* and its extensions for waterborne applications. We hereby exploit the fact that for vessels optimal paths typically have heading changes only at the corners of obstacles to propose a more efficient modified A* algorithm, A*BG, for autonomous inland vessels. Two locations where ship accidents frequently occur are considered in simulation experiments, in which the performance of A*, A*PS, Theta* and A*BG are compared.