Low Cost Unmanned Surface Vehicle Swarm Formation Control using a Potential Field

This paper discusses the implementation of a potential field algorithm onto a swarm of low-cost unmanned surface vehicles for formation control. The goal of this work is to extend this established approach for ground vehicles [2] to maritime surface vessels. This type of control algorithm allows for formation assembly around a moving point or host vehicle. This formation algorithm can be utilized in many applications including protection of vessels travelling through restricted or high traffic waterways. Previous work by L. Barnes [2] has shown this method to be simple and more computationally efficient which is important keeping hardware cost of the swarm down. The swarm is constructed using off the shelf components, open-source hardware, and open-source software.