Cooperative dynamic positioning of multiple offshore vessels via local information interactions

Unlike the traditional dynamic positioning of single marine surface vessel, a local cooperative control scheme is proposed to achieve the dynamic positioning of multiple offshore vessels and rigs subject to the influence of persistent ocean disturbances through a connected communication network. Cooperative dynamic positioning controllers are developed with the aid of a dynamic surface control technique and theory of multi-agent systems. The proposed control laws guarantee that a relative formation among vessels can be achieved even when only a fraction of vessels have access to the reference point. The stability properties of the proposed controllers are established via Lyapunov analysis. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.