Formation Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Authors:	Yamakita Masaki, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Ikeda Takashi, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Mita Tsutomu, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Topic:	4.3 Robotics
Session:	Unmanned Aerial, Ground and Marine Vehicles
Keywords:	Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Formation Control

Abstract

In this paper, we present a formation-keeping control of multiple nonholonomic autonomous underwater vehicles(UAVs) in 3D space. We use a so-called Leader-Follower formation approach, and our control task is to keep the relative position of each follower with a desired orientation to the leader. An I/O linearization is applied to the error system whose coordinates are the differences between a target point fixed with follower, and desired position defined in the leader's local coordinate system is realized. We will also prove the local stability of zero-dynamics and give a condition for perfect formation. The efficiency of our control is demonstrated by numerical simulations.