This paper addresses the problem of platooning control for a fleet of heterogeneous sailboats. The platooning maintains a constant time headway (CTH) between sailboats following a circular path, a complex problem for sailboats due to the influence of wind direction. First, the desired acceleration based on the CTH and the sailboat velocity needed to converge to the platooning is defined. Second, a control of sailboat orientation to manage the sailboat acceleration is proposed. The proposed platooning strategy adapts to the specific characteristics of sailboats, which are different from other motorized marine vehicles. Two tack strategies can be used for the method: the first is to regulate the sailboat velocity; the second is to go front of the wind while staying in a short corridor. The desired acceleration for fulfilling the platooning has been derived and validated. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in comparison with an optimal receding horizon control algorithm.

The umbilical of Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) has two main problems: it is subject to entanglement with obstacles or itself, and its shape is difficult to predict for the navigation. To address these issues, this article proposes a passive self-management of an ROV’s umbilical, suitable for underwater and seafloor exploration. By adding two buoys moving freely on the umbilical, the described method avoids self-entanglement of the cable by stretching it, and gives it a predictable shape. A fast time computational model of the cable is proposed to provide feedback to the operator. The buoys move on their own to keep the cable taut without a motorized system, making this method easy to adapt to existing ROVs with few constraints on their navigation. Simulations and experimentation in pool show the effectiveness of the method.

This study extends recent results by Garcia et al. on an event‐triggered communication to reach consensus in multi‐agent systems. First, it studies the effect of two types of additive and bounded state perturbations on the consensus and on the communications. Second, it describes an improved agent state estimator as well as an estimator of the state estimation uncertainty to trigger communications. Convergence to consensus is studied. Simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed estimators in the presence of state perturbations.

This paper develops a geometrical construction of a shortest Dubins path in a discontinuous orientation restricted environment. The method proposed here builds the shortest path from one pose to the other while avoiding a no-go zone in terms of orientation, and being constrained to move forward. Finally, an application to autonomous sailboats is then provided to validate the feasibility of the planned shortest path in a position keeping scenario.