Cooperative control of multiple aquatic boats for source monitoring of contaminated water

Water is one of the most precious and valuable resources in Oman. As climate change is continuing to negatively impact our environment, it is important that we take a closer look at the quality of water in the ocean that surrounds the region. Nevertheless, there are many difficulties and limitations in current ocean observation systems. This project in a long term aims at developing multi-aquatic robot platforms which address the monitoring and collection of large amount of data over a large area in the sea. In a short term, the objective is the study of the cooperative motion of a fleet of Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) towards seeking the highest concentration of water contaminant in a given region. A decentralized approach will be adopted for the control formation strategy of the ASVs. In this project, we will show how ASVs can individually create a local estimate of the formation based on a local measurement of the scalar field value of the pollutant in the water and how possibly they can create their own control action using that estimate. New algorithms will be proposed enabling the ASV to circumnavigate the source of contamination/pollution.