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Because of their wide detection range and rich functions, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are widely used for observing the marine environment, for exploring natural resources, for security and defense purposes, and in many other fields of interest. Compared with a single AUV, a multi-AUV formation can better perform various tasks and adapt to complex underwater environments. With changes in the mission or environment, a change in the UAV formation may also be required. In the last decade, much progress has been made in the transformation of multi-AUV formations. In this paper, we aim to analyze the core concepts of multi-AUV formation transformation; summarize the effects of the AUV model, underwater environment, and communication between AUVs within formations on formation transformation; and elaborate on basic theories and implementation approaches for multi-AUV formation transformation. Moreover, this overview includes a bibliometric analysis of the related literature from multiple perspectives. Finally, some challenging issues and future research directions for multi-AUV formation transformation are highlighted.


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Overview of Research on Transformation of Multi-AUV Formations

Show Author's information Bin Xin*( )Junxi ZhangJie ChenQing WangYun Qu
School of Automation, and the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Control and Decision of Complex Systems, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China

Abstract

Because of their wide detection range and rich functions, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are widely used for observing the marine environment, for exploring natural resources, for security and defense purposes, and in many other fields of interest. Compared with a single AUV, a multi-AUV formation can better perform various tasks and adapt to complex underwater environments. With changes in the mission or environment, a change in the UAV formation may also be required. In the last decade, much progress has been made in the transformation of multi-AUV formations. In this paper, we aim to analyze the core concepts of multi-AUV formation transformation; summarize the effects of the AUV model, underwater environment, and communication between AUVs within formations on formation transformation; and elaborate on basic theories and implementation approaches for multi-AUV formation transformation. Moreover, this overview includes a bibliometric analysis of the related literature from multiple perspectives. Finally, some challenging issues and future research directions for multi-AUV formation transformation are highlighted.

Keywords: autonomous underwater vehicle, multi-AUV formation, formation transformation, formation control

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Publication history

Received: 16 February 2021
Revised: 18 February 2021
Accepted: 22 February 2021
Published: 30 April 2021
Issue date: March 2021

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© The author(s) 2021

Acknowledgements

This work was co-supported by the National Outstanding Youth Talents Support Program (No. 61822304), the Basic Science Center Programs of NSFC (No. 62088101), the Peng Cheng Laboratory, the Consulting Research Project of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (No. 2019-XZ-7), the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61621063), and the Projects of Major International (Regional) Joint Research Program of NSFC (No. 61720106011).

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