A Docking Control Technology Using Artificial Potential Field and NMPC for Pontoon Bridge Blocks

Under an environment with calm water, the paper studied the path planning method and the path tracking control strategy for controlling multiple pontoon bridge blocks. A horizontal motion model is initially established for the blocks. Next, the paper proposed the artificial potential field-based model to achieve path planning for blocks. And further, a tracking controller adopting NMPC was designed for the planned paths. Finally, the optimum performance of the path planning model and the NMPC tracking controller is verified by several experiments. Besides, a trial in the real physical scene was conducted, which testified that the proposed technology could control each block to move to a specific position when preparing for docking.