A new formation control of multiple underactuated surface vessels. Issue 5 (4th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Xie, Wenjing; Ma, Baoli; Fernando, Tyrone; Iu, Herbert Ho-Ching
• Is Part Of: International journal of control. Volume 91:Issue 5(2018)
• Page Start: 1011
• Page End: 1022
• Publication Date: 2018-05-04
• Subjects: Underactuated surface vessels -- formation control -- input–output linearisation; Automatic control -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 629.8
• DOI: 10.1080/00207179.2017.1303849
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-7179

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This work investigates a new formation control problem of multiple underactuated surface vessels. The controller design is based on input-output linearisation technique, graph theory, consensus idea and some nonlinear tools. The proposed smooth time-varying distributed control law guarantees that the multiple underactuated surface vessels globally exponentially converge to some desired geometric shape, which is especially centred at the initial average position of vessels. Furthermore, the stability analysis of zero dynamics proves that the orientations of vessels tend to some constants that are dependent on the initial values of vessels, and the velocities and control inputs of the vessels decay to zero. All the results are obtained under the communication scenarios of static directed balanced graph with a spanning tree. Effectiveness of the proposed distributed control scheme is demonstrated using a simulation example.