Coordinated formation control of nonlinear marine vessels under directed communication topology

In this paper, the problem of making a fleet of marine surface vessels form a desired formation pattern and move along a desired trajectory as whole is considered. And the communication topology between these vessels is directed graph which are not necessarily balanced, that is the communication links can be unidirectional. The coordinated formation control algorithm and the coordinated tracking control algorithm for multiple marine vessels under the directed strongly connected communication graph are proposed. In addition, we propose the robust coordinated tracking control algorithm to against the time-varying environmental disturbances and the model parameters uncertainness. These controllers are designed through defining a set of formation vectors, then accomplish the whole controller design using the consensus algorithm. Finally, the simulations of proposed coordinated control algorithm are carried out and the results illustrate the proposed controllers are accurate and effective.