Formation control and obstacle avoidance of multi-AUV for 3-D underwater environment

Leader-follower formation control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is studied in this paper, and a three-dimensional formation control and obstacle avoidance method of multi-AUV is presented, which is based on back stepping control and biological inspired neural network model. The follower tracks the virtual AUV, during which the back stepping control method is lead up to realize three dimensional underwater formation control. To avoid obstacles and come through the obstacles' area, the biological inspired neural network model is used to transform the formation of the AUV. Simulation results show that the presented algorithm achieve the expected control effect, and verify the validity and the practicability of the algorithm.