Formation control of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles based on state feedback

This paper presents a new method based on the state feedback of the followers in the leader-follower formation control of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) cooperative system. Firstly, we analyze and redefine some kinds of the followers´ possible abnormal conditions. Then we add the state feedback of the followers to the traditional leader-follower method by using a finite state automaton (FSA), each formation control command corresponds to a follower discrete state. We established a FSA model based on the state feedback for special situations which the system has one leader and three followers and we ignore some abnormal conditions which will not happen in a real environment. Then we designed the FSA model in general condition with the followers´ number is N. Finally, the formation control method with two follows are demonstrated by simulation tests on a AUV simulation platform based on Matlab, the simulation results show that the FSA based on state feedback law perform better in dealing with abnormal conditions of the follows, and the simulation also shows the enhance of the system stability.