Practical constrained output feedback formation control of underactuated vehicles via the autonomous dynamic logic guidance

Abstract

This paper investigates the practical leader-follower formation control issue of underactuated vehicles. To achieve the waypoints-based formation navigation, the autonomous dynamic logic (ADL) guidance is proposed by incorporating the marine practice into the virtual ship-based formation guidance strategy. In the proposed guidance, only a dominant virtual leader is required for constructing the waypoints-based formation reference framework, which shows the simplicity and the practicability. As for the control part, a constrained output feedback algorithm is developed by means of the linear extended state observer (LESO). By constructing the augmented variable, the model uncertainty and unknown disturbances are integrated to be estimated and compensated together. In addition, a second-order dynamic auxiliary system is designed to handle the problem of actuator saturation, where two additional saturation compensation terms are introduced to stabilize the kinematics and the kinetics error dynamics, respectively, and the smoothness of constrained control signals can be guaranteed owing to the modification of Gaussian error function. Using the Lyapunov direct method, all signals in the closed-loop system are proved to be semi-global uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB). Finally, two simulation experiments, including the comparative experiment and the formation navigation experiment in the presence of simulated ocean disturbances, are carried out to illustrate the feasibility and the superiority of proposed scheme.