Coordination Task Triggered Formation Control Algorithm for Multiple Marine Vessels

This paper presents a novel coordinated formation algorithm for multiple surface vessels that used the guidance-control structure. The proposed coordination algorithm is the combination of the virtual leader strategy and the passivity-based coordination method. In which, the guidance system is used to supply the desired reference signals by designing the controller according to the corresponding marine task. The control system is designed to achieve a coordinated controller which can be applied to different tasks used these reference signals. The desired formation among these surface vessels is formed by designing a universal consensus control law for all the formation reference points of these surface vessels. Especially, the hybrid control theory is introduced to guarantee smooth switching among the coordinated controllers for different marine task. Then, the proposed coordination control algorithm can guarantee the general marine formation operation for multiple surface vessels. Finally, the effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by the simulation results.