Distributed 3-D Affine Formation Maneuver Control for Multiple AUVs With Active Communication Delays Compensation Mechanism
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This paper solves the distributed three-dimensional (3-D) formation pattern maneuvering transformation (FPMT) problem for multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the presence of the time-varying communication delays (CDs). A distributed affine formation maneuver control scheme with active communication delays compensation mechanism is proposed. Firstly, a novel active CD compensation mechanism (ACDCM), consisting of the information prediction mechanism (IPM), distributed formation maneuvering parameter estimators (DFMPEs) and distributed trajectory estimators (DTEs), is presented for multi-AUV formation system to tackle the CDs. The IPM is used to reconstruct the current neighbor information according to the received delayed neighbor information. By utilizing the reconstructed information of neighboring vehicles, the DFMPEs and DTEs are designed to estimate the real-time formation trajectories, accounting for time-varying CDs. Secondly, the novel concise adaptive terminal sliding mode control (CATSMC) laws with the advantage of low computing load are developed to track the estimated formation trajectories for each AUV, and the tracking errors are steered towards a vicinity of the zero in finite time. Finally, the high-fidelity simulations and lake trial experiments are executed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme.