Approximation-free design for distributed formation tracking of networked uncertain underactuated surface vessels under fully quantized environment

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Distributed formation tracking results have been studied in the literature for networked underactuated surface vessels (NUSVs) at the dynamic level. The distributed formation tracker design of NUSVs under a fully quantized environment remains an open problem. This paper provides a solution to this problem in the low-complexity control framework that ensures prescribed performance without the help of any adaptive approximation tools. State variables and underactuated control inputs of followers are quantized and communicated under a directed network. Distributed formation controllers using quantized state feedback signals are constructed for NUSV followers. The design conditions that lead to establishing the prescribed performance of local tracking errors in the presence of state and input quantization are newly derived via distributed quantization errors. It is shown from the recursive analysis of closed-loop quantization errors that although all states and inputs of followers and the communicated position information under a directed network are quantized, the prescribed performance of the presented formation system is ensured.