Distributed dynamic rendezvous control of the AUV-USV joint system with practical disturbance compensations using model predictive control

Abstract

This paper addresses the distributed dynamic rendezvous control problem of the AUV-USV heterogeneous joint system in the presence of unknown external disturbances using nonlinear model predictive control. By utilizing the nonlinear model predictive control framework, the rendezvous problem can be solved without constructing explicit error dynamics of the heterogeneous system. The inputs and states constraints such as spatial and velocity constraints can also be considered simultaneously in an intuitive way. To facilitate distributed implementations, distributed optimization problems with incorporated moving suppression are then constructed to guarantee nominal stability. Considering unknown external disturbances, a practical disturbance compensating method is finally proposed, ensuring the satisfaction of state constraints. The nominal recursive feasibility and stability are proved in this paper. Compared with existing works, the proposed scheme improves the applicability and robustness against external disturbances for dynamic rendezvous between two heterogeneous robots. Simulations and comparisons are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed method.