LAUSR

This paper addresses the problem of platooning control for a fleet of sailboats. A quadrilateral path is proposed to avoid going into the wind. A tack strategy is defined to go front the wind, stay in a short corridor and regulate the sailboat acceleration, which is a challenging task in comparison to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) or surface vehicles that can use motors for such regulation. Desired acceleration which guarantees to reach the platooning has been derived and validated. A method of regulating the sail angle using a proportional command is proposed to control the sailboat acceleration. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.