Formation control of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles in horizontal plane

In formation control, each autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) needs to maintain a desired distance among others while following its predefine path. We divided the problem into two steps, one is path following of a single vehicle, and the other is coordinating the path parameter. We combine backstepping and Lyapunov method to derive the path following algorithm for each AUV, and then make each AUVpsilas path parameter synchronization to accomplish the formation task. Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed control law, and in our algorithm, AUV needs to exchange the path parameter only, which decrease the communication requirement.