Event-Triggered Connectivity-Preserving Formation Control of Heterogeneous Multiple USVs

The leader-following formation control is investigated for heterogeneous multiple unmanned surface vehicles with unknown upper bound disturbances and uncertain parameters in this article. Each vehicle has a limited communication range, restricting the information exchange between neighboring vehicles to a specified radius. Due to the limitations of sensors and communication components, the communication frequency between vehicles is taken into account. First, a novel hybrid event-triggered virtual trajectory generation protocol is proposed. In such a protocol, each vessel generates its reference states in real-time without requiring real-time information from its neighbors. Then, by designing error-constrained tracking controller and connectivity-preserving potential function, the initial connectivity of the topology is maintained. Furthermore, fuzzy logic approximation and adaptive control techniques are combined in order to tackle the issues of disturbances and uncertain parameters. Through the Lyapunov method, it is proven that formation errors converge to zero as time approaches infinity. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed protocol is verified through a simulation involving a cluster of seven vehicles.