Cooperative Model Predictive Control in the Coastal Incident Management System (CIMS)

Marine oil spills without rapid and effective response may cause a series of severe hazards such as destroying the ocean ecological environments or even impacting human welfares. Conventional responders lack the in-time response capability for these time-sensitive incidents. To this end, SHIFT Environmental Technologies Ltd., are developing a promising solution called the Coastal Incident Management System (CIMS). This solution relies on the intelligence development of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), where the USV is controlled to the incident regions and the UAV plays a role of the Eye of the USV in the Sky for an enhanced perception capability. A unified cooperative model predictive control framework will be designed, which comprehensively involves the objectives (path planning for the two agents, the total energy consumption, etc.), the constraints (the connection between the two agents, the fixed/mobile obstacles, etc.), the uncertainties (the wind, wave, current, illumination conditions, and the modeling errors, etc.) together, to allow for coordinated optimal actions at each control period. The above functionalities will be integrated and embedded into the system software.

Faculty Supervisor:

Yang Shi

Student:

Partner:

Shift Coastal Technologies

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Ocean Tech; Advanced Manufacturing

University:

University of Victoria

Program: