A Two-Stage Design of Formation Control for Underactuated Surface Vessels

Abstract

This paper investigates the problem of formation control for underactuated unmanned surface vessels (USVs). The proposed two-stage formation control method makes the USVs asymptotically track the desired trajectory with desired speed. The control strategy includes two phases: the position and the velocity. Firstly, each USV is steered to the desired initial position in finite time through adding a power integrator in the phase of position. Then, USVs are controlled to obtain a desired forward speed along with the direction of the formation in the phase of velocity. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of our scheme.