Fault tolerant decentralized nonlinear MPC for fleets of unmanned marine vehicles

A fleet of unmanned marine vehicles moving together in a prescribed pattern forms a robotic system for cooperative tasks. The problem is to control several marine vehicles such that, after transients, they form a required formation and move along a desired trajectory. The capability to accomplish the mission even in case of fault, is a fundamental requirement for these kind of vehicles. A completely decentralized nonlinear predictive control integrated with a fault tolerant strategy is here proposed for allowing safe cooperation. Based both on the local information and the acquired one through a LAN, each marine vehicle selects the desired formation to keep and plans its future actions. The proposed solution can be applied to different classes of unmanned marine vehicles.