Distributed Planar Manipulation in Fluidic Environments

We present a distributed control mechanism allowing a swarm of non-holonomic autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) to synchronously arrange around a rectangular floating object in a grasping formation; the swarm is then able to collaboratively transport the object to a desired final position and orientation. We analytically consider the problem of synchronizing the ASVs' arrival at the object, with regard to their initial random positions. We further analytically construct a set of acceptable trajectories, allowing the transport of the grasped object to its final desired position. Numerical simulations illustrate the performance of the presented control mechanism. We present experimental results, to demonstrate the feasibility and relevance of our strategy.