A study on strategy of formation control for multi-miner in turning operation

This paper deals with an applicability of multirobot concept to deep-seabed mining system in aim of performance enhancement. From the viewpoint of mining production, a multi-miner system might be more prospective than single-miner. System characteristics of multi-miner are analyzed based on taxonomies of multi-robot to identify problems of the multi-miner and to find out proper solutions. Formations of multi-miner following mining paths are of great significance for the safe operation of miners connected with buffer, especially, in turning operations. Thus, this paper concentrates on the formation control method in turning path. Two turning methods and three formations are presented for formation control. Numerical simulations showed that strategies of diagonal formation result in good safety performance. The performance of the diagonal formation strategies are verified by experiments using three ground mobile robots.