Cooperative Control of Multiple Underwater Robots Based on Brief Binary Optical-Acoustic Dual Signals

Abstract

The applications of multiple underwater robots are becoming more widespread as the oceans continue to be explored. However, the cooperative control of multiple underwater robotic systems lacks an effective way to interact with information in the presence of weak communication in the water. This study proposes a brief binary optical-acoustic dual signals hybrid cooperative control method for overcoming this difficulty. It simplifies the information interaction rule to improve the efficiency of cooperative control while guaranteeing the range of underwater communication. This method includes an acoustic communication mechanism that enables the underwater robot to transmit signals over long distances and an optical communication mechanism that enables the transmission of signals in close situations. Avoiding information redundancy due to traditional underwater real-time communication, the underwater robots send brief binary signals through optical and acoustic sensors to realize cooperative control. An underwater robot equipped with a dual optical-acoustic system is designed in this paper combining the leader and follower formation structure. The triangular formation experiment and diamond formation experiment were also conducted in the pool to verify the effectiveness of this cooperative control method. The study provides a method for the cooperative control of multiple underwater robotic systems.INDEX TERMS multiple underwater robots; information interaction; brief binary optical-acoustic dual signals; cooperative control method