Deep Reinforcement Learning Control for Path Following and Static Obstacle Avoidance for Autonomous Surface Vessels

Autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) operating in narrow and restricted waterways must follow a planned path while avoiding nearby static hazards and maintaining safe clearance from boundaries. This paper presents a LiDAR-based deep reinforcement learning framework for path following and static obstacle avoidance of an underactuated ASV. The vessel receives local pose information from a localization system and surrounding environment through a 2D LiDAR scan, which is converted into compact sector features using feasibility-inspired pooling method. A Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) policy is trained in simulation to output continuous rudder and propulsion commands, based on LiDAR features, estimated motion states, and path-relative errors. The policy is evaluated over 500 randomized simulation episodes ranging from 0–4 obstacles. The trained policy achieved an overall success rate of 95.0%, with an average cross-track error of 0.66 m. Obstacle and border collision rates are 3.80% and 1.20%, respectively; indicating that the policy can perform path tracking and collision avoidance in constrained layouts. A single field trial was then conducted in each of three fixed obstacle layouts using the model-scale Bluefin vessel. In these trials the policy executed on the physical platform and avoided static obstacles, with minimum obstacle clearances of 0.50–1.17 m. However, the field trajectories exhibit larger oscillations and longer path lengths than simulation, with an average RMS cross-track error of 1.14 m compared to 0.69 m in simulation.