Time-optimal control of an unmanned ocean surface vessel

Path planning for unmanned ocean vehicles often neglects constraints arising from the dynamics of the vehicle. Therefore, this thesis is concerned with finding a method that can incorporate a dynamical vehicle model into the problem of path planning. In several example problems, the Sparse RRT algorithm is shown to be applicable to the problem, even though several parameters of the algorithm have to be chosen carefully and the results may require post-processing for being applicable to real technical systems. In addition to dynamical vehicle models, in principle it is also possible to incorporate energy constraints, obstacles and current fields in the time-optimal planning procedure.