Cooperative Formation Control for the Air‐Sea Heterogeneous Unmanned System Under Adaptive Switching Topology

ABSTRACT In this article, the cooperative formation control problem of an air‐sea heterogeneous unmanned system (ASHS) under adaptive switching topology is investigated. And a cooperative control method, consisting of a cooperative path‐planning algorithm for leaders in different unmanned domains and a formation control algorithm for followers in each unmanned domain, is proposed. The proposed method involves four aspects. First, a neighboring node decision mechanism is designed to determine the neighboring nodes of each unmanned vehicle and establish the network topology of the ASHS, where both broadcast and unicast communication modes are considered. Second, to reduce communication energy consumption for the cooperative control, a greedy optimization‐based topology switching mechanism is presented to minimize the number of neighboring nodes of each unmanned vehicle. Third, a cooperative path‐planning algorithm using an improved artificial potential field is proposed to handle the path planning with obstacle avoidance for leaders in different unmanned domains. Finally, assuming that the obstacle avoidance by followers is superior to the formation control by the group, an adaptive hierarchical formation control algorithm is proposed for followers in each unmanned domain. Simulation results show that the cooperative control of the ASHS can be achieved with the proposed method. Moreover, from the perspective of communication energy consumption for the cooperative formation control in the ASHS, the broadcast mode is a good choice for the state information exchange.