Work

Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles in Uneven Environments: A Survey of Coverage and Sensor Data Collection Methods

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) play a central role in marine observation, inspection, and monitoring missions, where effective trajectory planning is essential for ensuring safe operation, reliable sensing, and efficient data transfer. In realistic underwater environments, uneven seafloor geometry, limited acoustic communication, navigation uncertainty, and sensing visibility constraints significantly influence mission performance and challenge classical planar planning formulations. This survey reviews trajectory planning methods for AUVs operating in uneven environments, with a focus on two major classes of underwater sensing missions: underwater area coverage using onboard sensors and underwater sensor data collection within underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) supporting the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT). For area coverage, the survey examines the progression from classical planar coverage strategies to terrain-aware, occlusion-aware, multi-AUV, and online planning frameworks designed to address uneven terrain and sensing visibility. For underwater sensor data collection, it reviews mobile sink-based trajectory planning strategies, including energy-aware, channel-aware, and information-based formulations based on metrics such as Age of Information (AoI) and Value of Information (VoI), as well as cooperative architectures involving unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). By synthesizing these two bodies of literature, the survey clarifies current capabilities and limitations of trajectory planning methods for AUVs operating in uneven underwater environments.

Source: Future Internet

DOI: 10.3390/fi18020079

Authors: Talal S. Almuzaini, Andrey V. Savkin

Institutions: UNSW Sydney, Islamic University of Madinah

Language: English

Topic: Underwater Vehicles and Communication Systems

Subfield: Ocean Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,930

Funder: Australian Research Council