Adaptive cooperative formation control for underactuated multiple surface vessel systems with random disturbances

Abstract

The adaptive cooperative formation control of underactuated multiple surface vessels in random environment is studied in this paper. To address the challenge of an underactuated surface vessel system subjected to random disturbances, second-order moment processes are introduced and the model of underactuated surface vessel system operating in random environment is subsequently formulated. Next, the underactuated surface vessel system model with random disturbances is converted into a fully actuated system model with 2-degree-of-freedom through two coordinate transformations. Based on this, an adaptive cooperative controller design strategy is proposed for each following surface vessel, ensuring that all vessels can achieve and maintain a predefined formation in the mean square sense throughout the voyage. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is demonstrated by simulation results.