Multi-AUVs formation control with acoustic communication constraints

Formation control has received significant attention in the field of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in recent years. There are many theoretical methods for solving this problem. But when applying these methods to an actual multiple AUVs system, communication constraints need to be considered because acoustic communication among multiple AUVs often is unreliable in actual ocean environment. This paper focuses on application and validation of a leader-follower approach on multi-AUVs formation maintenance with acoustic communication constraints. The communication interval between AUVs and packet loss rate are researched based on experiments. A leader-follower formation control algorithm based on a Line-Of- Sight guidance law is proposed. The simulation and experiment results show that the proposed method is effective and feasible when keeping a formation with a long delay of underwater acoustic communication, and it is also suitable for short-time communication interruption.