A path planning for formation rendezvous of the wave gliders considering ocean current disturbance

The wave glider (WG) formation has advantages over individual WG, such as faster covering environments and increased robustness. To provide a foundation for maintaining formation navigation, members of the WG formation need to meet position, course and time requirements when reaching the rendezvous points. To meet the formation rendezvous requirements of the WGs, a distributed cooperative particle swarm optimization (DCPSO) algorithm is proposed in this paper, simultaneously optimizing multiple pythagorean hodograph (PH) curves to construct paths. In the DCPSO, a representative particle for evaluating team fitness is selected by each sub-swarm after each iteration, and the particle velocity is jointly determined by three kinds of best positions. Considering the underactuation of the WG and the significant influence of ocean currents, an energy consumption model, dynamic curvature constraints, and a velocity model for the WG under the ocean current disturbance are incorporated into the fitness functions of the DCPSO. Simulation results demonstrate that the paths generated by the DCPSO ensure that each formation member reaches the rendezvous point almost simultaneously with the same course, while ensuring safe navigation and reducing energy consumption. Additionally, compared with other algorithms, the DCPSO exhibits a higher success rate and shorter average formation rendezvous time.