Coordinated Formation Control of Multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles for Pipeline Inspection

This paper addresses the control problem of inspecting underwater pipeline on the seabed, withcoordinated multiple autonomous underwater vehicles in a formation. Based on the leader-follower strategy, thededicated nonlinear path following controller is rigorously built on Lyapunov-based design, driving a fleet ofvehicles onto assigned parallel paths elevated and offset from the underwater pipeline, while keeping a triangleformation to capture complete 3D images for inspection. Due to the spatial-temporal decoupling characteristics ofindividual path following controller, the velocities of the followers can be adapted in the coordinated control level, only relying on the information of generalized along-path length from the leader, in order to build the desiredformation. Thus, the communication variable broadcast from the leader is kept to a minimum, which is feasibleunder the severely constraints of acoustic communication bandwidth. Simulation results illustrate the efficiencyof coordinated formation controller proposed for underwater pipeline inspection