Flocking control of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper presents flocking control algorithm for a group of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). A leader-follower flocking where, some AUVs are chosen as leaders which have global knowledge of desired track and other AUVs are chosen as followers which have only sensory capability to find the positions of neighbor AUVs without any global knowledge of desired path. The leader AUVs are desired to track the desired trajectory with the application of the proposed flocking controller and the follower vehicles are gradually attracted towards the leader vehicles so that the whole group tracks desired trajectory. In order to keep connected, the group approaches towards the flocking center whose position is estimated applying consensus algorithm with respect to the positions of the neighbor AUVs. The controller is developed using artificial potential functions (APF) such that the inter vehicle collision between AUVs is avoided. The efficacy of the developed controller is verified through simulation of four AUVs flocking in a group.