Dynamic event trigger based cooperative path following control for multiple autonomous surface vehicles

Objectives This paper addresses the cooperative path following control problem for multiple autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) subject to limited network bandwidth, model uncertainties, and external disturbances.

Methods A dynamic event-triggered cooperative path following control method is proposed. Specifically, a dynamic variable is introduced to design a dynamic event-triggered mechanism in the cooperation layer, and a dynamic event-triggered path parameter update law is designed to reduce network traffic. Additionally, a path parameter predictor is designed to estimate the path parameters of neighboring ASVs within the communication interval. In the guidance layer, a line of sight based guidance law is proposed. Finally, in the control layer, a super-twisting observer is employed to estimate the total disturbances, and a super-twisting dynamic control law is designed based on the estimated disturbances.

Results Stability and Zeno behavior analysis demonstrate that the closed-loop system is input-to-state stable, and the proposed approach does not exhibit Zeno behavior. Comparative simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic event-triggered cooperative path following control method for ASVs.

Conclusions The proposed method can achieve cooperative path following while reducing both transient and steady-state network traffic.