Adaptive synchronization control of multiple vessels with time delays

In this paper, an adaptive synchronization control approach is presented to control multiple fully actuated vessels along desired trajectory. And the communication network among these vessels is directed strongly connected but not necessarily balanced. Meanwhile, the control strategy is to synchronize each vessel with others in position and velocity. In addition, the proposed decentralized synchronization control law is adaptive in the presence of model parameter uncertainty and the constant coupling time delays. A combination of the Lyapunov theory and the mathematical graph theory has been used to validate the stability of the whole system. Finally, simulations of the proposed adaptive synchronization control algorithm are presented and discussed.