Guidance, Navigation and Control of Couplable Unmanned Surface Vehicles

The paper presents a comprehensive system concept for an electrically powered unmanned surface vehicle designed for single and convoy sailing on urban waterways. A description of the vehicle's equipment with regard to automated operation is given. The guidance, navigation and control system is described in detail and the individual sub-functions are explained. The focus lies on high-level automation tasks such as motion planning, automatic collision avoidance and automatic docking and undocking. The methods developed are tested by real experiments and the technical feasibility is demonstrated. Results on collision avoidance and coupling to a moored vehicle are presented. Finally, the paper addresses open problems that require further research.