USV Path Planning Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- 19.2% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees hold 218 of 1,137 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Filing is still climbing, not cooling. Annual filings rose 65% from 2021 (71) to 2024 (117), the most recent year the data can treat as complete.
- Ships and control classes dominate, sensing lags behind. B63B and G05D together sit on roughly a third and a fifth of all records respectively, while G01C navigation/gyroscope filings hold just 6.1%.
Filing growth compares 2021 (71 records) with 2024 (117) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 1,137 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity in unmanned surface vessel (USV) path planning and autonomous marine navigation — the control, routing and sensing systems that let a surface vessel operate without a human pilot aboard. The scope spans hull and vessel-class filings (B63B), non-electric control systems (G05D), naval and offensive applications (B63G), and the radar, sonar and geophysical sensing that feeds a planning stack (G01S, G01V). It also captures adjacent propulsion, launch-and-recovery and gyroscopic navigation filings that support the same autonomy loop.
The 1,137 records in scope run from 2015 through the 2026 cut-off, with China, the United States, WIPO, Europe, Australia and Germany as the principal receiving offices. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years of the trend are still filling in and should be read as a floor, not a ceiling.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 1,137-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how records distribute across the IPC subclasses that define the field's technical core.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings peaked so far in 2017 at 138, dipped, then rebuilt: 2021 to 2024 shows a 65% rise (71 to 117), the last span the dataset can treat as complete before publication lag starts thinning the count.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B63B (ships and marine vessels) covers 32.9% of the 1,137 records and G05D (non-electric variable control) 22.8%, confirming that hull-and-control filings outweigh the sensing classes (G01S 10.7%, G01V 10.6%) that actually generate the perception data a path planner consumes.
Shares are the percentage of the 1,137 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Marine Autonomy & Navigation — Unmanned-Surface-Vessel Path Planning Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about marine autonomy & navigation — unmanned-surface-vessel path planning patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Cooperative charging between an unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned surface vessel
A method and system for cooperative charging between an unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned surface vessel: the aerial vehicle captures imagery of the surface vessel, analyses the relative position of a capture device and the vessel's velocity, approaches and hovers within capture range, then either the surface vessel or the aerial vehicle completes the docking and recapture sequence if the first attempt misses the range.Filed by Guangdong Institute of Industrial Technology and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, published 2019-10-10.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20220004191A1 | USV formation path-following method based on deep reinforcement learning | 176 |
| 2 | WO2019126755A1 | Generating and classifying training data for machine learning functions | 104 |
| 3 | US20160121983A1 | Deployment and retrieval of seismic autonomous underwater vehicles | 81 |
| 4 | CN107085427A | 一种基于领导跟随结构的无人水面艇编队控制方法 | 73 |
| 5 | US20180364740A1 | Systems and methods for charging unmanned aerial vehicles on a moving platform | 71 |
| 6 | US20160124105A1 | Touch down monitoring of an ocean bottom seismic node | 66 |
| 7 | WO2017167905A1 | A boat or ship with a collision prevention system | 59 |
| 8 | US20170225760A1 | System and Method For Fusion of Sensor Data to Support Autonomous Maritime Vessels | 57 |
| 9 | CN107168335A | 一种考虑混合多目标避障的水面无人艇路径跟踪制导方法 | 55 |
| 10 | US20120192779A1 | Autonomous maritime container system | 54 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings and are a signal of influence, not of current commercial weight; several of the most-cited records here predate the 2021–2024 filing surge.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Put your own technology through the same analysis
Eureka on the web
When you want the answer in the next five minutes.
The agent works the prompt against patents and technical literature, citing every source.
Run your analysis now →MCP server & REST API
When it has to run inside your own pipeline.
Patent search, landscape analysis and assignee resolution as MCP tools. Drop them into any agent framework, or call REST directly.
Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three readings of the same dataset, aimed at where to file, who to watch and what the citation data actually supports.
The top of the field is not crowded
Nineteen percent held by five assignees, rising to 31.0% across ten, leaves the majority of records spread across a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants. That is room for a new entrant to build a defensible position without displacing an incumbent, provided the claim sits outside the dense B63B/G05D core.
Growth is real, not a publication artefact
The rise from 71 filings in 2021 to 117 in 2024 sits inside the window the dataset can treat as complete, so it reflects genuine filing behaviour rather than a lag effect. Read 2025 and 2026 figures as still filling in, not as a slowdown.
Sensing and precision-navigation claims are the thin layer
Vessel-class and control claims (B63B, G05D) dominate the corpus, while the dedicated navigation/gyroscope class (G01C) and launch-and-recovery class (B63C) each sit at 6.1% and 6.1% of records. That gap is where a precision-navigation or recovery-mechanism claim is less likely to collide with existing art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to marine autonomy & navigation — unmanned-surface-vessel path planning patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and momentum
The ranked leaders in this dataset span defence contractors, maritime equipment makers, university research institutes and offshore-survey specialists — a mix that reflects USV autonomy's dual civilian and naval applications.
One filer well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's 67 records sit clear of fifth place at 33 and tenth place at 23, a gap that signals a sustained, multi-year filing programme rather than a single opportunistic burst.
Academic institutes are active, not peripheral
Chinese maritime universities and research institutes appear repeatedly through the ranking, filing alongside commercial equipment makers and defence-linked entities — a pattern typical of a field still moving from research into deployable hardware.
Joint filing is rare but concentrated
Only nine co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, with the strongest pair filing 10 records together — evidence that most work here is filed solo, and that the handful of joint programmes that exist run deep rather than wide.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Harbin Engineering University | 5 | 0% |
| Exail Enterprise Corporation | 1 | -86% |
| Dalian Maritime University | 1 | -75% |
| Applied Physical Sciences Corp. | 0 | — |
| Kongsberg Maritime AS | 0 | -100% |
| SEABED GEOSOLUTIONS BV | 0 | — |
| Wuhan University of Technology | 0 | -100% |
| King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, portfolio strategy or competitive tracking.
Map claim boundaries before filing
With B63B and G05D covering roughly a third and a fifth of records respectively, a new filing in vessel control needs a claim search against the densest part of this corpus before drafting, not after.
Run a claim search in EurekaTrack the leading assignee's programme
A 67-record leader with a multi-year lead is worth monitoring for continuation filings and citation activity rather than treating as a one-time competitor snapshot.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaRevisit the 2025–2026 trend once it settles
Because publication lag understates the most recent one to two years, re-pull the filing trend in six to twelve months before drawing conclusions about a slowdown.
Explore trend data in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
The dataset's leading assignee holds 67 of the 1,137 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 33 and tenth-ranked at 23. The top five assignees combined account for 19.2% of all records, and the top ten for 31.0%, meaning the majority of filings sit outside the leading group in a long tail of smaller and single-filing entrants. This mix includes maritime equipment manufacturers, defence-linked firms and university research institutes, reflecting the field's dual civilian and naval use.
Filings grew 65% between 2021 (71) and 2024 (117), the most recent three-year span the dataset can treat as complete. Figures for 2025 and 2026 appear lower, but that reflects publication lag — patent applications typically publish around 18 months after filing, so the newest years always look artificially thin and should not be read as a real slowdown. The reliable growth signal is the 2021–2024 rise.
Ships and marine vessel structure (IPC class B63B) covers 32.9% of the 1,137 records, and control of non-electric variables (G05D) covers 22.8%, together forming the technical core of the field. Naval and offensive vessel applications (B63G) sit at 14.7%, while the sensing classes that feed a planning stack — radar/sonar/positioning (G01S) and geophysical surveying (G01V) — each sit near 10.7% and 10.6%. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these shares add up to more than 100%.
Navigation and gyroscope-specific filings (G01C) and launch-and-recovery mechanisms (B63C) each account for only 6.1% of the 1,137 records, well below the dominant vessel-control classes. Co-assignee collaboration is also thin, with only nine joint-filing pairs identified across the whole corpus. Sub-areas such as cooperative UAV-USV recovery sequencing and multi-vessel formation hand-off protocols show comparatively light claim density relative to core vessel-control filings.
US20190312461A1 claims a method and system for cooperative charging between an unmanned aerial vehicle and an unmanned surface vessel, covering image-based position capture, velocity analysis, controlled approach and hover, and a re-capture sequence if the first docking attempt misses range. Filed by Guangdong Institute of Industrial Technology and Huazhong University of Science and Technology and published in October 2019, it sits inside a sub-area — cooperative aerial-surface recovery — with comparatively few competing filings. Anyone designing a similar vision-guided docking or re-capture sequence should review this filing's specific claim language on approach geometry and hover-range detection before finalising a design.
Research Marine Autonomy & Navigation — Unmanned-Surface-Vessel Path Planning Patent Landscape in depth with Eureka
Go past this page: query the whole marine autonomy & navigation — unmanned-surface-vessel path planning patent landscape corpus yourself, in your own scope.
Every answer comes back with patent numbers you can open.
Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.