Cooperative Distributed Navigation, Guidance, and Control Systems for Autonomous Surface Vehicles with Different Physical Connections

In the paper, we describe our studies to realize a control algorithm for distributed marine robots with rigid/elastic mechanical constraints between them. The work is carried out in the framework of the EUMR TNA project DINGOS. Our strategy follows the line to adapt conventional cooperative path-following algorithms from literature to the described problem in order to start to extend the concept of DP3, currently related to Dynamic Positioning, to the phase of motion along a path of a vessel. The usability of different concepts is evaluated following some well-defined quality criteria in a kinematic simulation.