One of the major respects of the autonomous capability of underwater robots in unknown environment is to be capable of global path planning and obstacles avoiding when encountering abrupt events. For the Spherical Underwater Robot (SUR) to fulfill autonomous task execution, this paper proposed a novel fuzzy control method that incorporates multi-sensor technology to guide underwater robots in unknown environment. To attain the objective, a SUR we designed is used to design the controller. According to its kinematic model, the safety distance was calculated and sensors (US1000-21A) were arranged. The novel fuzzy control method was then explored for robot’s path planning in an unknown environment through simulation. The simulation results demonstrate the capability of the proposed method to guide the robot, and to generate a safe and smooth trajectory in an unknown environment. The effectiveness of the proposed method was further verified through experiments with a SUR in a real platform. The real environment experiments by using the novel fuzzy control method were compared with the basic control method. The experimental results show that in unknown environments, the proposed method improves the execution efficiency and flexibility of the SUR.

中文翻译：

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未知环境下球形水下机器人的路径优化方法

在未知环境中水下机器人的自主能力的主要方面之一是能够在遇到突发事件时进行全局路径规划和避免障碍。为了使球形水下机器人（SUR）能够完成自主任务的执行，本文提出了一种新颖的模糊控制方法，该方法结合了多传感器技术，可以在未知环境中引导水下机器人。为了达到这个目的，我们设计了一个SUR来设计控制器。根据其运动学模型，计算了安全距离并布置了传感器（US1000-21A）。然后，通过仿真探索了一种新颖的模糊控制方法，用于未知环境下机器人的路径规划。仿真结果证明了所提方法指导机器人的能力，并在未知环境中生成安全平滑的轨迹。通过在真实平台上使用SUR进行实验，进一步验证了该方法的有效性。将使用新型模糊控制方法的实际环境实验与基本控制方法进行了比较。实验结果表明，在未知环境下，该方法提高了SUR的执行效率和灵活性。