It is well known that path planning has always been an important study area for intelligent ships, especially for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). Therefore, it is necessary to study the path-planning algorithm for USVs. As one of the basic algorithms for USV path planning, the rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) is popular due to its simple structure, high speed and ease of modification. However, it also has some obvious drawbacks and problems. Designed to perfect defects of the basic RRT and improve the performance of USVs, an enhanced algorithm of path planning is proposed in this study, called the adaptive hybrid dynamic stepsize and target attractive force-RRT(AHDSTAF-RRT). The ability to pass through a narrow area and the forward speed in open areas of USVs are improved by adopting the AHDSTAF-RRT in comparison to the basic RRT algorithm. The improved algorithm is also applied to an actual gulf map for simulation experiments, and the experimental data is collected and organized. Simulation experiments show that the proposed AHDSTAF-RRT in this paper outperforms several existing RRT algorithms, both in terms of path length and calculating speed.

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