Deep reinforcement learning-based controller for dynamic positioning of an unmanned surface vehicle

Dynamic positioning (DP) system is of great significance for the unmanned surface vehicle (USV) to achieve fully autonomous navigation. Traditional control schemes have problems such as model accuracy, parameter tuning, and complex design. In addition, although the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is widely used in the field of vessel motion control, the learning efficiency is not high, and insufficient robustness in the face of changing environmental. In order to improve the anti-disturbance ability, robustness and convergence speed of the controller during training, a deep reinforcement learning control method based on priority experience replay (PER) is proposed for dynamic positioning of the USV. The mathematical models are established based on the kinematic and dynamic of the USV. Markov decision process (MDP) models are constructed according to the DP tasks. The simulation results show that compared with other DRL algorithms, the proposed method has higher reward value, faster convergence speed, higher control precision and smoother control output.