Fuzzy Time-Varying Formation Control for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Considering Aerial Base Station Allocation Algorithm

As an essential maritime relay station, the allocation of a limited number of Aerial Base Stations (ABSs) to meet the communication needs of unmanned surface equipments has emerged a vital issue. This paper investigates the selection of formation centers for time-varying formation control of nonlinear Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) assisted by ABSs. First, considering the Laplacian matrix among the leader ABSs and follower USVs, a communication volume-based and position-dependent algorithm is developed to determine the assigned ABSs for each USV. Next, leveraging fuzzy approximators, a fuzzy time-varying formation control protocol for the USVs is proposed, with the assigned ABS serving as the formation center. Furthermore, based on Lyapunov stability theory, it is demonstrated that all USVs successfully achieve the predefined time-varying formation structure while rotating around the selected ABS. Finally, a numerical simulation is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.