On cooperation between autonomous underwater floating manipulation systems

This paper describes an unifying control framework which has been proposed and successfully employed within the recently concluded TRIDENT EU FP7 project. It further describes the extension of this proposed framework to dual arm free floating control case (single underwater vehicle with two 7 d.o.f redundant manipulators), and even the more challenging cooperative control of two I-AUVs for the transportation of large objects which is part of the currently ongoing Italian national project MARIS. The paper presents simulation results as well as actual experimental trials showing the effectiveness of this proposed control framework.