Containment control of networked heterogeneous autonomous surface vehicles: A data-driven control approach

In this article, by creating a novel distributed full-form dynamic linearization based model-free adaptive containment control (FFDL-MFACC) approach, the containment control problem of networked heterogeneous autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), suffering from complex external disturbances and unavailable kinetic model-information, is resolved. In light of the data-driven strategy, a full-form dynamic linearization-based data model is efficiently established. Then, by further deploying the commonly used rotation matrix, a distributed FFDL-MFACC scheme is thereafter developed such that accurate tracking of a predefined convex hull spanned for all follower vehicles can be achieved. Afterwards, a disturbance observer is further designed to accurately estimate the lumped disturbances and the estimation is served as a compensation within the distributed full-form dynamic linearization. Rigorously theoretical analysis indicates the devised distributed FFDL-MFACC method can ensure the asymptotic containment tracking of networked heterogeneous ASVs. Finally, simulation results are illustrated to verify the advantages of the devised approach.