A Design of Leaderless Formation Controller for Multi-ASVs with Sampled Data and Communication Delay

The formation control technology of the multi-ASV (autonomous surface vehicle) system is one of the key technologies required for performing maritime missions. In this paper, a leaderless formation controller is proposed, where the issues of sampled communication and data transmission delays in formation are taken into consideration. By introducing the desired displacements and the implicit formation center (IFC), the control goal of the leaderless formation is explicitly defined. Through the application of a state-space transformation, the achievement of the leaderless formation is shown to be equivalent to the stabilization of the transformed subsystem. The implicit formation center of the leaderless framework is derived, which facilitates the description and analysis of formation movements. The stability of the system is rigorously analyzed by using the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. Furthermore, an H∞ performance controller is designed to evaluate the tolerance of the leaderless formation against marine environmental disturbances. Numerical simulations with 10 ASVs under sampled communication and transmission delay demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller, achieving an H∞ performance bound γ of 10.