Loading [MathJax]/extensions/MathZoom.js
Rudy R. Negenborn - IEEE Xplore Author Profile

Showing 1-25 of 97 results

Results

Waterborne transport is very important for moving freight and passengers globally. To make this transport more efficient, vessel design must adapt to changing missions, regulations and the occurrence of malfunctions. This paper presents the design of an intelligent decision-support framework to assist marine engineers and vessel operators in updating the system and control architecture of marine v...Show More
This paper considers the presence of movable bridges in inland waterway transport, and presents a control framework for the joint dynamic coordination of bridge operations and autonomous vessel navigation to minimize waiting times of vessels at bridges. Simultaneous evolution of bridge occupancy and vessel position is captured by a control-oriented model that incorporates qualitative behavior in t...Show More
Multiagent reinforcement learning (RL) training is usually difficult and time-consuming due to mutual interference among agents. Safety concerns make an already difficult training process even harder. This study proposes a safe adaptive policy transfer RL approach for multiagent cooperative control. Specifically, a pioneer and follower off-policy policy transfer learning (PFOPT) method is presente...Show More
This paper presents a rule-compliant trajectory optimization method for the guidance and control of Autonomous Surface Vessels. The method builds on Model Predictive Contouring Control and incorporates the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea relevant to motion planning. We use these rules for traffic situation assessment and to derive traffic-related constraints that are ins...Show More
A novel follow-the-leader approach for azimuth-driven vessels is devised and experimentally tested in a model-scale outdoor scenario. The vessels are equipped with global navigation satellite and inertial navigation systems. A line-of-sight algorithm ensures the yaw-check ability of the follower vessel along the leader's path, while a speed-regulation allows to track its velocity. Track generation...Show More
The safety of maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS) in mixed waterborne transport system (MWTS) depends on effective situational awareness (SA) distribution among MASS, manned ships, and various stakeholders, such as Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), Remote Control Center (RCC) and Fairway Shipping Agency. This paper focuses on the research question: How can situational awareness be effectively dis...Show More
Transportation of a large offshore platform from inland waters to the open sea is a hazardous and challenging mission. With the development of the autonomous surface vessel (ASV), the problem of large floating object transportation has a chance to be solved by applying multiple physical-connected autonomous tugboats. This article proposes a distributed dynamic coordination control scheme for a mul...Show More
Most of the existing path planning methods of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are static. This paper proposes a new methodology for the path planning of a fleet of AGVs to improve the flexibility, robustness, and scalability of the AGV system. We mathematically describe the transport process as a dynamical system using an ad hoc mixed logical dynamical (MLD) model. Based on our MLD model, model p...Show More
Vessels sailing in a single platoon could reduce resistance from the perspective of the whole platoon and the individual vessel, and contribute to improving energy benefits. Moreover, transportation energy costs and traffic efficiency are essential indicators for measuring waterborne transportation systems. We attempt to minimize transportation energy costs by coordinating platoon formation using ...Show More
This work presents a method for multi-robot coordination based on a novel distributed nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) formulation for trajectory optimization and its modified version to mitigate the effects of packet losses and delays in the communication among the robots. Our algorithms consider that each robot is equipped with an onboard computation unit to solve a local control proble...Show More
This paper investigates a novel routing problem of a multi-robot station in a manufacturing cell. In the existing literature, the objective is to minimize the cycle time or energy consumption separately. The routing problem considered in this paper aims to reduce the cycle time and energy consumption jointly for each robot while avoiding collisions between these robots. For this routing problem, w...Show More
This paper addresses the flexible formation problem for unmanned surface vehicles in the presence of obstacles. Building upon the leader-follower formation scheme, a hybrid line-of-sight based flexible platooning method is proposed for follower vehicle to keep tracking the leader ship. A fusion artificial potential field collision avoidance approach is tailored to generate optimal collision-free t...Show More
This paper proposes a novel dynamic coordination control scheme for a physically connected multi-vessel towing system to transport an offshore platform. The transportation process is executed by four tugboats, and each of them has a leading or following role. To render the transportation faster, the roles of the tugboats can be switched in the towing process. The dynamic coordination decision mech...Show More
This paper considers a coordinated global shipment matching problem in which a global operator receives shipment requests from shippers and three local operators provide local transport services in different geographical areas. While local operators make local matching decisions, the global operator combines the matched local services into itineraries to provide integrated transport for shipments....Show More
This paper proposes a multi-objective cooperative control method for a ship-towing system in congested water traffic environments. The control objectives are to coordinate multiple autonomous tugboats for transporting a ship to: (i) follow the waypoints, (ii) adjust the heading, (iii) track the speed profile, and (iv) resolve collisions. The problem is tackled by the design of multiple control age...Show More
Understanding the modal split in freight transportation is a key factor for the successful implementation of innovations. Mode choice models should then be as representative of reality as possible. The use of disaggregate shipment data can help to achieve it. However, shipment data are often unavailable due to confidentiality issues. As a result, numerous models using only aggregate data have been...Show More
Traditionally, terminal operators create an initial berthing plan before the arrival of incoming vessels. This plan involves decisions on when and where to load or discharge containers for the calling vessels. However, disruptive unforeseen events (i.e., arrival delays, equipment breakdowns, tides, or extreme weather) interfere with the implementation of this initial plan. For terminals, berths an...Show More
Energy consumption is expected to be reduced while maintaining high productivity for container handling. This paper investigates a new energy-efficient scheduling problem of automated container terminals, in which quay cranes (QCs) and lift automated guided vehicles (AGVs) cooperate to handle inbound and outbound containers. In our scheduling problem, operation times and task sequences are both to...Show More
Pontryagin's Minimum Principle is a way of solving hybrid powertrain optimal energy management. This letter presents an improvement of a classical implementation. The core of this improvement consists in relaxing the tolerance on some intermediate steps of the algorithm in order to reduce the number of iterations and thereby reducing the number of operations required to compute an optimal solution...Show More
The increasing capacity of offshore wind energy around the world brings challenges in Operation and Maintenance (O&M) management. Over the past years, many studies have focused on developing sound maintenance strategies in order to minimize maintenance cost or maximize availability. One of the promising maintenance strategies is opportunistic maintenance due to its potential to combine maintenance...Show More
Formation control of autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) has been studied extensively over the last few years since it offers promising advantages. In this paper, two control methods for distributed leader-follower formation control are proposed: A Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (MPC) method and an MPC method using Feedback Linearization. One agent per vessel performs planning and control. The a...Show More
Collision avoidance plays a vital role in autonomous vehicle systems. As the complexity and scale of missions increase, multi-vehicle systems are adopted in practice. However, there is limited research on collision avoidance of a physically interconnected multi-vessel system. This paper proposes a control scheme for tugboats to tow a ship in congested port areas ensuring collision avoidance that i...Show More
It is desirable to improve the efficiency of container transport both from an economical and an environmental point of view, as increased efficiency decreases costs and emissions per transported container. Modern transport schemes, such as synchromodal transport, use a-modal bookings to increase the flexibility of the transport providers where the mode choice can be postponed until all demand for ...Show More
The quality of the delivery service is a crucial asset for an e-grocer to create and maintain a loyal customer-base. With the rapid market growth of e-grocers over the last decade, there is an urgent need for e-grocer specific routing systems. Although stochastic and dynamic routing models are studied for a wide range of applications, e-grocer specific models are missing in the literature. This pa...Show More
Pontryagin's Minimum Principle is a way of solving hybrid powertrain optimal energy management. This paper presents an improvement of a classical implementation. The core of this improvement consists in relaxing the tolerance on some intermediate steps of the algorithm in order to reduce the number of iterations and thereby reducing the number of operations required to compute an optimal solution....Show More