Cooperative control of autonomous tugs for ship towing

Du, Zhe; Reppa, V.; Negenborn, R.R.

doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.1448

Cooperative control of autonomous tugs for ship towing

Title

Cooperative control of autonomous tugs for ship towing

Author

Du, Zhe (Student TU Delft)
Reppa, V. (TU Delft Transport Engineering and Logistics)
Negenborn, R.R. (TU Delft Transport Engineering and Logistics)

Date

2020

Abstract

Autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) are seeing a significant development over the last decade. In recent years, their commercial applications are attracting the attention of many companies. One of the promising subjects is to develop autonomous tugs for ship berthing. This paper focuses on the cooperative control of autonomous tugs for ship towing in a berthing scenario. We propose a multi-layer optimal control strategy for a two-tug towing system to guarantee a ship reaching a desired position with a desired heading and velocity. In the higher layer supervisory control, an optimal control method is used to allocate towing forces and determine towing angles. With the help of these results and geometry relationships, the reference trajectories of the two autonomous tugs can be calculated online. Based on the reference trajectories, the trajectory tracking, which is in the lower layer, is addressed. Simulation results indicate that two autonomous tugs can cooperatively tow the unpowered ship to a desired position with a desired heading and velocity.

Subject

Autonomous surface vehicles
Cooperative control
Multi-layer optimal control
Multi-vessel systems
Ship manipulation

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4ef01bb6-48b0-4347-8d05-cf4a4908448d

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.1448

ISSN

1474-6670

Source

IFAC-PapersOnLine, 53 (2), 14470-14475

Event

21st IFAC World Congress 2020, 2020-07-12 → 2020-07-17, Berlin, Germany