Distributed Control of Multiple Unmanned Surface Vehicles with Collision Avoidance Based on a Modified Artificial Potential Function

This paper investigates the distributed formation control of underactuated unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in the presence of unknown obstacles. Only some USVs have access to the virtual leaders, and all USVs follow the same parameterized path. To achieve a stable formation, a modified artificial potential field-based anti-saturation control approach is suggested. First, a new artificial potential field function designed by sigmoid function is proposed, which optimizes the sudden change and divergence of the kinematics output caused by the saturation of the potential function. Second, a connectivity preservation artificial potential function is designed to prevent the loss of effective communication distance. Finally, a distributed kinematics control law combining sideslip angle observer is designed to provide with unknown sideslip angle. It is proven that all error signals in the USVs formation control system are ultimately uniformly bounded. Numerical simulations and comparisons demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed control approach.