# Coverage Path Planning with Track Spacing Adaptation for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12896 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.12896/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 23 Jun 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Human-Robot Collaborative Minimum Time Search through Sub-priors in Ant Colony Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.00517/) (2024)
- [Coverage Path Planning: Classical Foundations, Recent Advances, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10649/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper we address the mine countermeasures (MCM) search problem for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) surveying the seabed using a side-looking sonar. We propose a coverage path planning method that adapts the AUV track spacing with the objective of collecting better data. We achieve this by shifting the coverage overlap at the tail of the sensor range where the lowest data quality is expected. To assess the algorithm, we collected data from three at-sea experiments. The adaptive survey allowed the AUV to recover from a situation where the sensor range was overestimated and resulted in reducing area coverage gaps. In another experiment,the adaptive survey showed a 4.2% improvement in data quality for nearly 30% of the 'worst' data.