2024/02/16 by Jess Stephenson, Stephenson, Jess, Nathan T. Duncan +3
Engineering · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Electrical engineering #Fault Detection and Control Systems #Maritime Navigation and Safety #Robotics (cs.RO) #Stability and Control of Uncertain Systems #Systems and Control (eess.SY) #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2402.10399
openalex publication_date 2024/02/16 · openalex created_date 2024/02/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Heterogeneous autonomous robot teams consisting of multirotor and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) have the potential to enable various maritime applications, including advanced search-and-rescue operations. A critical requirement of these applications is the ability to land a multirotor on a USV for tasks such as recharging. This paper addresses the challenge of safely landing a multirotor on a cooperative USV in harsh open waters. To tackle this problem, we propose a novel sequential distributed model predictive control (MPC) scheme for cooperative multirotor-USV landing. Our approach combines standard tracking MPCs for the multirotor and USV with additional artificial intermediate goal locations. These artificial goals enable the robots to coordinate their cooperation without prior guidance. Each vehicle solves an individual optimization problem for both the artificial goal and an input that tracks it but only communicates the former to the other vehicle. The artificial goals are penalized by a suitable coupling cost. Furthermore, our proposed distributed MPC scheme utilizes a spatial-temporal wave model to coordinate in real-time a safer landing location and time the multirotor's landing to limit severe tilt of the USV.