Self-Triggered Formation Control of an Asynchronous Multiple Underwater Unmanned Vehicle Under Communication Delay

To address the problem of multiple underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) formation tracking under bounded communication delay, considering the existence of model parameter perturbations of UUVs as well as external ocean current disturbances, a distributed robust model predictive controller (DRMPC) with a dual closed-loop control structure and self-triggering mechanism is proposed. Among them, the outer-loop controller transforms the target trajectory into the target speed required by the inner-loop controller, and the inner-loop controller solves the effects of model parameter perturbations and bounded disturbances by RMPC and a finite-time extended state observer (FESO). To reduce the communication load of the system, a self-triggering mechanism is designed to determine the next triggering moment while solving the outer-loop optimization problem. The feasibility and stability of this controller are analyzed via mathematical induction and the ISpS Lyapunov theory. Finally, the effectiveness of this formation controller is validated through simulation experiments with multi-UUV.