Distributed Guidance Law for Containment Maneuvering of Underactuated Surface Vehicles

In this paper, we propose a distributed guidance method for the containment maneuvering of multiple underactuated unmanned surface vehicles in the presence of ocean currents. In the proposed approach, consensus algorithms are first introduced to generate reference paths and synchronize the vehicles. Then, nonlinear surge and heading guidance laws are designed to ensure the convergence to the desired path and compensate for the sideslip effect. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified by numerical simulations.