Formation control of fully-actuated marine vessels using group agreement protocols

This paper addresses the problem of getting fully-actuated marine surface vessels to establish a formation before executing its mission, which here is to traverse a predetermined path. Whereas existing designs typically solve the problem by establishing the formation on the path, the proposed design in this paper allows the vessels to coordinate at an arbitrary location prior to a collective movement to the path. Protocols for group agreement form the basis of the proposed solution, while ideas from maneuvering control theory are incorporated to yield the desired path-following behavior. To demonstrate the design, a simulation is shown, where the formation's capability of handling a severe single vessel failure is illustrated.