Coordinated path-following control of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2007

Authors

Pedro P Aguiar (Author) Other; Reza Ghabcheloo (Author) Other; Antonio M Pascoal (Author) Other; Carlos Silvestre (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference Proceedings

Pages: 1073-1079

17th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference (ISOPE 2007)

Lisbon, PORTUGAL, JUL 01-06, 2007

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 6 Citations

Scopus - 17 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Environmental engineering

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-004-EE3

Abstract (EN): The concept of multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) cooperatively performing a mission offers several advantages over single vehicles working in a non-cooperative manner such as increased efficiency, performance, reconfigurability, robustness and the emergence of new capabilities. This paper introduces the concept of coordinated path-following control of multiple AUVs. The vehicles are required to follow pre-specified spatial paths while keeping a desired inter-vehicle formation pattern in time. We show how Lyapunov-based techniques and graph theory can be brought together to yield a decentralized control structure where the dynamics of the cooperating vehicles and the constraints imposed by the topology of the inter-vehicle communications network are explicitly taken into account. Path-following for each vehicle amounts to reducing an appropriately defined geometric error to a small neighborhood of the origin. Vehicle coordination is achieved by adjusting the speed command of each vehicle along its path according to information on the positions of a subset of the other vehicles, as determined by the communications topology adopted. We illustrate our design procedure for underwater vehicles moving in three-dimensional space. Simulations results are presented and discussed.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 7