Path Planning for Mine Countermeasures

We have developed path-planning techniques and tools to look for paths through minefields. Our techniques seek to balance the length and risk associated with different routes through a minefield. Our methods are intended to provide battlegroup commanders powerful new tools to evaluate alternative routes while searching for low risk paths. It is well known how to find the path of shortest distance, and well known how to find the path of least risk. However, to optimize both criteria at once is a challenging problem. We have developed and compared two methods for multi-criteria path planning. We have found that the better method uses a linear combination of the criteria with a user selected risk tolerance parameter. We also describe the novel use of dynamic graph algorithms to quickly find new paths as the risk is changed due to the neutralization (deletion) of mines and the discovery (insertion) of mines. We will also describe an algorithm used to convert paths to a set of straight-line paths for ship navigation. Our tool allows a commander to find a path of acceptable length and risk, to explore the effect of eliminating mines, and to obtain a set of waypoints for minefield navigation.