Virtual Target Based Coordinated Path-Following for Multi-Vehicle Systems

The challenging task of coordinating a number of heterogeneous marine vehicles within a cooperative multi-robot framework is addressed. In particular this paper is focused on three problems related to the cooperative guidance of Unmanned Marine Vehicles (UMVs) solved through the application of the virtual target based approach: i) the Vehicle-Following problem is addressed and solved, for the case of an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) following the path defined by a human-driven vessel, moreover proposing experimental results; ii) the previous case approach is extended to guide a number of autonomous vehicles to follow a predefined path, maintaining a certain position configuration; iii) the problem of coordinating a set of vehicles moving on different paths (namely, wingman problem) is proposed.