Robotic Manifold Tracking of Coherent Structures in Flows

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robotic control method enabling a team of robots to track stable and unstable manifolds in fluid flows using local sensing, applicable to static and dynamic oceanic models.

Contribution

It presents a novel collaborative control strategy that does not require global flow information, validated through simulations and experiments on static and noisy time-dependent flows.

Findings

Successful tracking of coherent structures in simulations

Experimental validation with robotic team in flow environments

Theoretical guarantees of the control strategy

Abstract

Tracking Lagrangian coherent structures in dynamical systems is important for many applications such as oceanography and weather prediction. In this paper, we present a collaborative robotic control strategy designed to track stable and unstable manifolds. The technique does not require global information about the fluid dynamics, and is based on local sensing, prediction, and correction. The collaborative control strategy is implemented on a team of three robots to track coherent structures and manifolds on static flows as well as a noisy time-dependent model of a wind-driven double-gyre often seen in the ocean. We present simulation and experimental results and discuss theoretical guarantees of the collaborative tracking strategy.