Coordinated motion control of marine robots

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of coordinated motion control of marine robots. A nonlinear control law is derived to steer two underwater vehicles along identical parallel paths, while ensuring that the lateral distance between them remains constant. The key idea explored in the paper is to elect one of the vehicles as leader and the other as follower. Both the leader and follower execute the same path following algorithm, the leader traveling along its assigned path at a desired speed profile. The velocity of the follower is then adapted based on the measure of a "generalized along-path distance" between the two vehicles. The amount of information to be exchanged between the two vehicles is thus kept at a minumum. Controller design builds on Lyapunov theory and backstepping techniques. Simulation results illustrate the performance of the coordinated motion control system proposed.