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Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems pp 321–336Cite as

Direct Policy Search with Variable-Length Genetic Algorithm for Single Beacon Cooperative Path Planning

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Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics ((STAR,volume 104))

Abstract

This paper focuses on Direct Policy Search (DPS) for cooperative path planning of a single beacon vehicle supporting Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) performing surveying missions. Due to the lack of availability of GPS signals underwater, the position errors of the AUVs grow with time even though they are equipped with proprioceptive sensors for dead reckoning. One way to minimize this error is to have a moving beacon vehicle with good positioning data transmit its position acoustically from different locations to other AUVs. When the position is received, the AUVs can fuse this data with the range measured from the travel time of acoustic transmission to better estimate their own positions and keep the error bounded. In this work, we address the beacon vehicle’s path planning problem which takes into account the position errors being accumulated by the supported survey AUVs. We represent the path planning policy as state-action mapping and employ Variable-Length Genetic Algorithm (VLGA) to automatically discover the number of representative states and their corresponding action mapping. We show the resultant planned paths using the learned policy are able to keep the position errors of the survey AUVs bounded over the mission time.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARL, Tropical Marine Science Institute and, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore, 119227

    Tan Yew Teck & Mandar Chitre

Authors
  1. Tan Yew Teck
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  2. Mandar Chitre
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tan Yew Teck .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA

    M. Ani Hsieh

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Gregory Chirikjian

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Teck, T.Y., Chitre, M. (2014). Direct Policy Search with Variable-Length Genetic Algorithm for Single Beacon Cooperative Path Planning. In: Ani Hsieh, M., Chirikjian, G. (eds) Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 104. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55146-8_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55146-8_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-55145-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-55146-8

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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