An Intermittent Anti-Competition Communication Mechanism-Based Formation Maneuvers for Internet of Unmanned Surface Vehicles

The development of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) technologies considerably promote the application of Internet of Things (IoT) in marine activities. However, frequently changed geometrical configurations and potential network congestion severely threaten system performance. Regarding this, this article proposes an anti-competition communication mechanism-based affine formation maneuver control (AFMC) scheme for the Internet of USVs. First, an auxiliary system is introduced to construct two-layer-based formation maneuver structure, i.e., localization layer and tracking layer. In the localization layer, an intermittent interleaved period event-triggered mechanism (IIPETM) is proposed such that each individual could enjoy interleaved communication periods. Then, by establishing a backstepping-based controller in the tracking layer, formation members will sail along a trajectory generated by the localization layer, thus forming the desired geometrical configuration. The proposed method can significantly reduce network throughput and improve communication efficiency even under intermittent network connectivity. Finally, theoretical analysis and simulations are performed to validate the feasibility of the proposed method.