Guided leaderless coordinated formation algorithm for multiple surface vessels

This paper investigates the coordinated formation problem for multiple surface vessels. We introduce a formation space to define the desired formation and the desired operation mission, then a guided leaderless coordinated formation algorithm is proposed. The proposed formation algorithm is achieved based on the guidance-control structure. The guidance system is designed by defining a new position vector for each vessel in the formation space and designing the control input for the new defined kinematics model in the formation space. Then the guidance system can provide the reference signals for each vessel. The control system is designed based on the passivity of every vessel system due to the nonlinear property. Furthermore, the proposed formation algorithm only requires the general unbalance directed communication topology between these vessels. The validity of the proposed formation algorithm is demonstrated by the simulation results.