Cooperative decentralized circumnavigation with application to algal\n bloom tracking

Abstract

Harmful algal blooms occur frequently and deteriorate water quality. A\nreliable method is proposed in this paper to track algal blooms using a set of\nautonomous surface robots. A satellite image indicates the existence and\ninitial location of the algal bloom for the deployment of the robot system. The\nalgal bloom area is approximated by a circle with time varying location and\nsize. This circle is estimated and circumnavigated by the robots which are able\nto locally sense its boundary. A multi-agent control algorithm is proposed for\nthe continuous monitoring of the dynamic evolution of the algal bloom. Such\nalgorithm comprises of a decentralized least squares estimation of the target\nand a controller for circumnavigation. We prove the convergence of the robots\nto the circle and in equally spaced positions around it. Simulation results\nwith data provided by the SINMOD ocean model are used to illustrate the\ntheoretical results.\n