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Cooperative caging and transport using autonomous aquatic surface vehicles

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Abstract

We present a study on the cooperative control of two autonomous surface vehicles performing a caging and transport mission on the water surface. The two vehicles, connected to each other by means of a floating flexible rope, are required to capture a floating target from a given location, and transport it to a designated position. We focus on the coordination and control strategy to meet these requirements, and on its implementation on two under-actuated vehicles. We describe a multi-layered control architecture which achieves the goal, followed by simulation studies and field experiments with the two vehicles caging and transporting a floating target on the surface of a lake.

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Correspondence to Filippo Arrichiello.

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A preliminary version of this paper was published in the proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [13].

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Arrichiello, F., Heidarsson, H.K., Chiaverini, S. et al. Cooperative caging and transport using autonomous aquatic surface vehicles. Intel Serv Robotics 5, 73–87 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11370-011-0104-9

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