Case Study: Networked Control for Optimal Maneuvering of Autonomous Vessels. Issue 8 (2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Shuchen; Roy, Sylvain; Pairet-Garcia, Eloy; Gehrt, Jan-Jöran; Siemer, Friederike; Büskens, Christof; Abel, Dirk; Zweigel, René
• Is Part Of: IFAC-PapersOnLine. Volume 52:Issue 8(2019)
• Page Start: 440
• Page End: 445
• Publication Date: 2019
• Subjects: Autonomous Navigation -- Cooperative Vessels -- Trajectory Optimization -- Trajectory Control -- Networked Control System; Automatic control -- Periodicals; 629.805
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ifacol.2019.08.095
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2405-8963

Abstract

Abstract: This paper presents the development of a networked control system for maritime autonomous shipping within the joint project GALILEOnautic 2 (grant 50NA1808). The project aims for autonomous navigation and optimal maneuvering of cooperative vessels in a harbor environment. In this publication, the networked vehicles dynamically estimate position, velocity, attitude and time using a navigation filter. The estimated states are used by an optimization algorithm which calculates optimal trajectories for each active participant. For a secure and efficient data exchange within the system, long term evolution (LTE) mobile communication together with virtual private network (VPN) are used. To compensate for mobile communication latency and time delay by data processing, data synchronization is realized among system components with the help of global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Feedback trajectory control is established to compensate the model errors. Besides active network participants, other vehicles are considered as well by means of the automatic identification system (AIS). Due to high costs related to testing with real vessels, real-world validation is performed with a rapid control prototyping (RCP) platform for research and education developed at RWTH Aachen University, the so called IRT-Buggy. Collision avoidance scenarios in a harbor-like structure defined by geodetic coordinates are evaluated. Results show that the designed networked control system accomplishes the autonomous navigation and maneuvering task as required.