Distributed Formation Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Based on Flocking and Consensus Algorithms

In this paper, a distributed formation controller of autonomous underwater vehicles is presented. An artificial potential field is proposed based on the Lennard-Jones potential. A weight function is designed to make the potential smoothly die off at the boundaries. A control algorithm is proposed according to the three rules of Reynolds: flock centering, collision avoidance and velocity matching. A single-step target tracking method is proposed to translate the desired acceleration, produced by the potential force, to the desired velocity and heading for the AUV. To make the algorithm distributed, each AUV holds a copy of the virtual leader and calculates the guidance information individually. A consensus algorithm is proposed to make the mismatches convert to zeros. A fold line and a curve line path following of the fleet are simulated, with random initial positions of the AUVs. Under the formation control algorithms proposed, the AUVs are uniformly distributed and form a lattice-like formation. We increase the number of AUVs, and the algorithm serves well, which shows good availability and flexibility.