Collision-Free Adaptive Fuzzy Formation Control for Unmanned Surface Vehicle Systems with Input Saturation

This article studies the collision-free fuzzy formation tracking control problem for multiple nonlinear unmanned surface vehicle (USV) systems with input saturation. Fuzzy logic systems are utilized to identify the unknown vehicle kinetics, the fuzzy state observers are developed to estimate unmeasured position, yaw angle, yaw and velocities of multiple USV systems, and the disturbance observers are used to estimate the external disturbances and approximate errors. The prescribed performance functions are utilized to establish the condition of collision avoidance between the follower agent and its leader agent. Then, a novel collision-free adaptive output-feedback fuzzy formation controller is constructed by utilizing a suitable error transformation and back-stepping control design. The presented fuzzy formation control method can guarantee all the signals in multiple USV systems are bounded, the follower vehicle can track the leader vehicle, and each follower vehicle and the leader vehicle achieve collision avoidance. Finally, simulation results and comprehensive comparisons are provided to verify the effectiveness of the presented formation control method.