Hybrid Artificial Potential Fields and Spatio-Temporal Transformers for Real-Time AUV Path Planning

arXiv:2607.25056v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) operate in complex, unstructured environments where efficient and safe path planning is critical for mission success and energy conservation. This paper presents a comprehensive comparative evaluation of thirteen path planning algorithms, ranging from classical graph-search methods (A*, Dijkstra) and sampling-based approaches (RRT*) to metaheuristics (PSO, GA, ACO, BCO) and learning-based architectures. Special...