Rule-based safety optimization and dynamical anti-disturbance control: Application to point-to-point transitions for...

This paper addresses the safety-certified point-to-point transition problem of multiple underactuated autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) operating in a congested maritime environment. The main idea of this paper is to develop a novel rule-based safety optimization approach, combined with a dynamic anti-disturbance control strategy, to enable collision-free point-to-point transitions. The key features are twofold: ensuring the safe navigation of ASVs while minimizing the impact on the point-to-point transition task; and realizing precise kinetic control without relying on any prior knowledge of ASV model parameters. Specifically, at the kinematic level, nominal guidance laws are designed for position stabilization. Three rule-based control barrier functions are formulated to impose safety constraints on resultant velocity and yaw rate. The optimal guidance signals are obtained by solving a quadratic programming problem. At the kinetic level, extended state observers are designed to estimate the extended state, which unifies nonlinear dynamics, external disturbances, and control inputs. The estimates are then used to design dynamic controllers for velocity and yaw rate tracking. It is proven that the closed-loop control system is input-to-state stable, and that the safety of the multi-ASV system is also ensured. Both comparative results and semi-physical experimental results are elaborated to substantiate the efficacy of the proposed rule-based safety optimization and dynamical anti-disturbance control method.