Event-triggered-based finite-time cooperative formation control for USVs

This paper develops an event-triggered-based finite-time cooperative path following control scheme for underactuated surface vehicles (USVs). Initially, a finite-time extended state observer (FTESO) based line-of-sight (LOS) guidance law is proposed which can not only calculate the desired surge velocity and desired yaw rate, but also estimate the unmeasured velocities and disturbances simultaneously in finite time. Then, the finite-time cooperative control law is designed to realize the cooperative the synchronization of multiple paths of USVs formation in finite time. Furthermore, by combing the fixed threshold event-triggered control mechanism, formation controllers are designed such that the update frequency of controller and the mechanical loss of actuators are greatly reduced. Then, the finite-time stability of the proposed finite-time formation controller can be guaranteed by using the homogeneous method, Lyapunov theory and finite-time stability theory. Finally, simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed formation control scheme.