In scientific and technical diving, the survey of unknown or partially unexplored areas is a common task that requires an accurate planning for ensuring the optimal use of resources and the divers’ safety. In particular, in any kind of diving activity, it is essential to foresee the “dive profile” that represents the diver’s exposure to pressure over time, ensuring that the dive plan complies with the specific safety rules that have to be applied in accordance with the diver’s qualification and the environmental conditions. This paper presents a novel approach to dive planning based on an original underwater pathfinding algorithm that computes the best 3D path to follow during the dive in order to be able to maximise the number of points of interest (POIs) visited, while taking into account the safety limitations. The proposed approach, for the first time, considers the morphology of the 3D space in which the dive takes place to compute the best path, taking into account the decompression limits and avoiding the obstacles through the analysis of a 3D map of the site. Moreover, three different cost functions are proposed and evaluated to identify the one that could suit the divers’ needs better.

中文翻译：

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一种用于水下调查最优规划的水下寻路算法

在科学和技术潜水中，对未知或部分未开发区域的调查是一项常见任务，需要进行准确规划，以确保资源的最佳利用和潜水员的安全。特别是，在任何形式的潜水活动中，必须预见代表潜水员长期承受压力的“潜水情况”，以确保潜水计划符合必须遵守的特定安全规则。潜水员的资格和环境条件。本文提出了一种基于原始水下寻路算法的潜水计划新方法，该算法可计算潜水过程中要遵循的最佳3D路径，以便能够最大程度地访问拜访的兴趣点（POI），同时考虑到安全限制。拟议的方法，首次考虑潜水的3D空间形态，以计算最佳路径，同时考虑到减压限制并通过分析站点的3D地图避免了障碍。此外，提出并评估了三种不同的成本函数，以确定一种更适合潜水员需求的函数。