Objective Aiming at the area coverage problem of multiple autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), this paper investigates a coverage path planning (CPP) strategy based on an electronic chart display and information system (ECDIS).

Method First, according to the information of sea, land and water depth from ECDIS, an environmental model for the area coverage of ASVs is established based on the grid method. Second, an area division method based on the roulette wheel selection method is proposed to solve the problem of irregular area division in divided areas based on the robots' initial position method, and achieve the reasonable area division of ASVs in the grid map. Finally, a template-based area coverage path planning method is proposed to solve the problem of generating too many turns in paths generated by the spanning tree coverage agorithm.

Results A human-machine interactive simulation platform for ASVs based on ECDIS is established to verify the effectiveness of the proposed area coverage path planning method based on the roulette wheel method and template method in optimizing the number of turns in the planning path.

Conclusion The proposed area coverage path planning method for ASVs based on ECDIS can be used to achieve coverage path planning in target mission areas at sea.