A Novel Cooperative Platform Design for Coupled USV–UAV Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a novel cooperative unmanned surface vehicle–unmanned aerial vehicle (USV–UAV) platform to form a powerful combination, which offers foundations for collaborative task executed by the coupled USV–UAV systems. Adjustable buoys and unique carrier deck for the USV are designed to guarantee landing safety and transportation of UAV. The deck of USV is equipped with a series of sensors, and a multiultrasonic joint dynamic positioning algorithm is introduced for resolving the positioning problem of the coupled USV–UAV systems. To fulfill effective guidance for the landing operation of UAV, we design a hierarchical landing guide point generation algorithm to obtain a sequence of guide points. By employing the above sequential guide points, high-quality paths are planned for the UAV. Cooperative dynamic positioning process of the USV–UAV systems is elucidated, and then UAV can achieve landing on the deck of USV steadily. Our cooperative USV–UAV platform is validated by simulation and water experiments.