Cooperative manipulation on the water using a swarm of autonomous tugboats

In this paper we present a strategy that allows a swarm of autonomous tugboats to cooperatively move a large object on the water. The two main challenges are: (1) the actuators are unidirectional and experience saturation; (2) the hydrodynamics of the system are difficult to characterize. The primary theoretical contribution of the paper addresses the first challenge. We present a tracking controller and force allocation strategy that, despite actuator limitations, result in asymptotically convergent tracking for a certain class of reference trajectories. The primary practical contribution is the introduction of a set of adaptive control laws that address the second challenge by compensating for unknown, and difficult to measure, hydrodynamic parameters. Experimental verification of the controllers is presented using a 1:36 scale model of a U.S. Navy ship, inside the Naval Academy's unique 380 ft testing tank.

[1]  João Borges de Sousa,et al.  Optimum Allocation For Multiple Thrusters , 1999 .

[2]  George J. Pappas,et al.  Stable flocking of mobile agents, part I: fixed topology , 2003, 42nd IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37475).

[3]  Tor Arne Johansen,et al.  Constrained nonlinear control allocation with singularity avoidance using sequential quadratic programming , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[4]  Luca Maria Gambardella,et al.  Collaboration Through the Exploitation of Local Interactions in Autonomous Collective Robotics: The Stick Pulling Experiment , 2001, Auton. Robots.

[5]  Kevin M. Lynch,et al.  Locally controllable manipulation by stable pushing , 1999, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[6]  Thomas Sugar,et al.  Control of cooperating mobile manipulators , 2002, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[7]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  A potential field based approach to multi-robot manipulation , 2002, Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292).

[8]  Richard M. Murray,et al.  A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation , 1994 .

[9]  Eric Bonabeau,et al.  Cooperative transport by ants and robots , 2000, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[10]  Daniela Rus.  Coordinated Manipulation of Objects in a Plane , 1997, Algorithmica.

[11]  John S. Bay,et al.  Optimal control for cooperating mobile robots bearing a common load , 1994, Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[12]  M.G. Feemster,et al.  Swarn Manipulation Of An Unactuated Surface Vessel , 2007, 2007 Thirty-Ninth Southeastern Symposium on System Theory.

[13]  Hong Zhang,et al.  Blind bulldozing: multiple robot nest construction , 2003, Proceedings 2003 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2003) (Cat. No.03CH37453).

[14]  Kevin M. Passino,et al.  Stability analysis of swarms , 2003, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[15]  Eiji Nakano,et al.  Solving function distribution and behavior design problem for cooperative object handling by multiple mobile robots , 2003, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part A.

[16]  Yongchun Fang,et al.  Disturbance Rejection for a Magnetic Levitation System , 2006, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[17]  M. Spong,et al.  Robot Modeling and Control , 2005 .

[18]  M. Feemster,et al.  Positioning of Large Surface Vessels using Multiple Tugboats , 2007, 2007 American Control Conference.

[19]  Joel M. Esposito,et al.  Maintaining wireless connectivity constraints for swarms in the presence of obstacles , 2006, Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006..

[20]  Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen,et al.  Global uniform asymptotic stabilization of an underactuated surface vessel: experimental results , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[21]  Richard M. Murray,et al.  Flocking with obstacle avoidance: cooperation with limited communication in mobile networks , 2003, 42nd IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37475).

[22]  Jean Ponce,et al.  A new approach to motion planning for disc-shaped robots manipulating a polygonal object in the plane , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[23]  Joel M. Esposito.  Distributed grasp synthesis for swarm manipulation with applications to autonomous tugboats , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[24]  Vijay Kumar,et al.  Decentralized Algorithms for Multi-Robot Manipulation via Caging , 2004, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[25]  Stephen P. Boyd,et al.  Convex Optimization , 2004, Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook.