A Dynamic Path Planning Method considering Sea Area Division for Off-shore Wind Farm Maintenance

With the development of the wind power industry, the development of resource-rich offshore wind farms has become an industry trend. However, due to the distance from the coast and the more complicated sea conditions, the maintenance of wind farms faces great challenges. This paper proposes a dynamic path planning model based on the division of nearshore and offshore areas. The model considers the basic geographic information of the round-trip path between the port and the wind farm, and divides the sea area along the way. Based on the characteristics of the nearshore and offshore areas, different path planning algorithms are selected to determine the optimal round-trip path. In round-trip path planning, the nearest neighbor algorithm is first used to divide the sea area, and the nearshore and offshore areas are divided according to the characteristics and distribution of obstacles in the sea area. Then, the D* algorithm is used in the nearshore part, and the improved artificial potential field algorithm is used in the offshore part for path planning in the nearshore and offshore areas. Finally, experiments are conducted based on the virtual sea area simulated by the simulation, and the experimental results show that the proposed path planning model can adapt to the complex sea area and plan the optimal round-trip path for wind farm maintenance.