Cooperative control of autonomous surface vehicles for oil skimming and cleanup

Oil skimmers towed by two vehicles have been widely used for skimming of oil on the water surface. In this paper, we address the cooperative control of two autonomous surface vehicles for oil skimming and cleanings. We model the skimmer as a flexible, floating rope of constant length as well as discrete segmented model. We derive the equations governing the rope dynamics from first principles and demonstrate their application through simulations. We have performed field experiments with two autonomous surface vehicles that substantiate the proposed model and provides estimates of constants underlying the model. We propose a method for controlling the shape of the rope, and derive the conditions that maximize skimming efficiency.