Differential Geometric Approach to Trajectory Planning: Cooperative Transport by a Team of Autonomous Marine Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a differential geometric framework for cooperative trajectory planning of autonomous marine vehicles towing a load, utilizing manifold-based modeling and distributed control, validated through micro ASV experiments.

Contribution

It develops a novel differential geometric approach to model and control cooperative transport with holonomic and non-holonomic constraints.

Findings

Successful experimental validation with micro ASVs

Effective distributed control for load trajectory tracking

Modeling approach handles complex constraints

Abstract

In this paper we addressed the cooperative transport problem for a team of autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) towing a single buoyant load. We consider the dynamics of the constrained system and decompose the cooperative transport problem into a collection of subproblems. Each subproblem consists of an ASV and load pair where each ASV is attached to the load at the same point. Since the system states evolve on a smooth manifold, we use the tools from differential geometry to model the holonomic constraint arising from the cooperative transport problem and the non-holonomic constraints arising from the ASV dynamics. We then synthesize distributed feedback control strategies using the proposed mathematical modeling framework to enable the team transport the load on a desired trajectory. We experimentally validate the proposed strategy using a team of micro ASVs.