Cooperative target substitution tracking control of multiple unmanned surface vehicles with substitute USVs

In this paper, the cooperative target substitution tracking problem of multiple unmanned surface vehicles (multi-USVs) with substitute members is studied. The damage and substitution problem of tracking USVs are considered for the first time in the tracking process. Firstly, we propose three substitution tracking strategies to deal with the damaged USVs for the first time. Secondly, the substitute USVs selection algorithm is designed to select appropriate substitute USVs to substitute the damaged USVs. At the same time, the influence of model uncertainty, time varying ocean disturbance and unknown parameter change on underactuated USVs tracking control are considered. Then, a novel tracking error system and a novel nonsingular terminal sliding mode surface are proposed. A novel cooperative distributed fast finite time substitution tracking control law is proposed based on nonsingular terminal sliding mode control and fast power reaching law. Finally, we use Lyapunov stability criterion to verify that the designed control law can achieve fast finite time tracking, and solve the tracking time varies caused by the tracking USVs being damaged and substituted. We also illustrate the correctness of our results by numerical simulations.