Coordinated control of a reconfigurable multi-vessel platform: Robust control approach

We propose a feedback control system for a reconfigurable multi-vessel platform. The platform consists of N propeller-driven vessels each of which is capable of latching to another vessel to form a rigid body of connected vessels. The main technical challenges are that i) depending on configurations of the platform the dynamic model would be different, and ii) the number of control variables in control system design increases as does the total number of vessels in the platform. To address these challenges, we develop a coordinated robust control scheme. Through experiments we assess trajectory tracking and disturbance attenuation performance of the control scheme in various configurations of the platform. Experiment results yield that average position and orientation tracking error are approximately 0.09m and 3°, and the maximum tracking error-to-disturbance ratio is 1.12.