Platoon control design for unmanned surface vehicles subject to input delay

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Control Systems
• Marine Engineering
• Cooperative Control Theory

Background:

• Vessel train formation is an emerging trend in multi-vessel cooperative control.
• Existing methods often struggle with input delays and computational complexity.
• Ensuring connectivity and collision avoidance in dynamic marine environments is critical.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design a robust formation control strategy for unmanned surface vehicle (USV) platoons.
• To address the challenges posed by input delays in cooperative control systems.
• To develop a computationally efficient and stable control method.

Main Methods:

• Incorporation of Barrier Lyapunov functions for connectivity-preserving and collision-avoiding constraints.
• Utilization of a neural dynamic model to simplify control design and smooth input signals.
• Application of the backstepping technique for distributed coordination and stability analysis.

Main Results:

• Finite-time distributed coordination of the USV platoon was achieved.
• Uniformly ultimately boundedness of the overall system was guaranteed through rigorous stability analysis.
• Simulations verified the effectiveness of the proposed control method in handling input delays.

Conclusions:

• The proposed control method effectively manages input delays in USV platoon formation.
• Barrier Lyapunov functions and neural dynamic models enhance control performance and stability.
• The approach offers a promising solution for advanced cooperative control in marine applications.