Sampled-data consensus control for nonlinear fully-actuated ships

Sampled-data consensus control for nonlinear fully-actuated ships is considered. Using a change of state variables of ships and an input transformation, the discrete-time double-integrator dynamics for ships are derived and then consensus control laws are designed by the discrete-time consensus control theory. Then applying the nonlinear sampled-data control theory based on the Euler approximate model, it is shown that the designed control laws achieve sampled-data consensus for nonlinear fully-actuated ships in the continuous-time semi-globally practically uniformly asymptotically stable (SPUAS) sense. A numerical example is given to illustrate the proposed design method.