Feedback Navigation in an Uncertain Flow Field and Connections with Pursuit Strategies

Abstract

This paper presents several classes of control laws for steering an agent, that is, an aerial or marine vehicle, in the presence of a both temporally and spatially varying drift field induced by local winds/currents. The navigation problem is addressed assuming various information patterns about the drift field in the vicinity of the agent. In particular, three cases are considered, namely when the agent has complete information about the local drift, when the drift field is partially known, and when the drift field is completely unknown. By first establishing a duality between the navigation problem and a special class of problems of pursuit of a maneuvering target, several navigation schemes are presented, which are appropriately tailored to the fidelity of the information about the local drift available to the agent. The proposed navigation laws are dual to well-known pursuit strategies, such as pure pursuit, parallel guidance/navigation, line-of-sight guidance, motion camouflage, and pursuit with neutralization. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the theoretical developments