Control of an autonomous underwater vehicle platoon with a switched communication network

We examine the stability and behavior of a platoon of autonomous vehicles which operate in a decentralized manner and communicate to achieve formation control objectives. We are interested in communication networks that are time-varying, with each vehicle interacting with different sets of vehicles as the system evolves. We are particularly interested in networks which are disconnected, and in which basic control objectives such as stability cannot be achieved, in a frozen-time sense. Graph theoretical concepts are used to help model the platoon and provide a framework for stability analysis. Periodic fast switching, a tool from the held of switching theory, is adopted to assess stability of systems with time-varying communication networks. We show that if switching is sufficiently fast, then a platoon of autonomous vehicles can be stabilized even when the communication network is disconnected in frozen time.