Adaptive Data-Driven Coordinated Control of UUVs for Maritime Search and Rescue

Dear Editor, This letter is concerned with a coordinated path following control method for multiple unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to carry out maritime search and rescue (MSR) missions. The kinetic model parameters of each UUV is totally unknown. Firstly, a kinematic control law is constructed by designing a vertical line-of-sight (LOS) guidance scheme. Secondly, a path variable update law is devised to realize careful MSR, which can achieve the coordinated control for networked UUVs. In addition, UUVs could stop at the predesigned MSR points automatically. Finally, a data-driven adaptive extended state observer (AESO) is proposed such that the unknown total disturbance, input gains and unmeasured velocities are simultaneously estimated without a prior kinetic model. The results are verified by numerical simulations for a fleet of UUVs to execute MSR.