Event-Triggered ${{\cal L}_2}$ Performance Control for Affine Formation of Networked Unmanned Surface Vehicles With Intermittent Communication

Communication connectivity is the main factor that affects networked unmanned surface vehicles’ (NUSVs) formation maneuverability. When vehicles are maneuvered for obstacle avoidance, distances between neighbors may exceed the limits of allowable communication ranges, causing communication interruption. Within this context, this paper proposes an event-driven fully distributed affine formation maneuver control (FDAFMC) scheme for NUSVs undergoing intermittent network connectivity. Firstly, a distributed observer is developed to divide the whole system into the cooperative localization subsystem and the tracking subsystem. A node-based adaptive gain is then developed in the cooperative localization layer to synthesize the intermittent event-triggered mechanism. Based on this framework, communication interruption occurring both in position and yaw channels can be considered integrally. Furthermore, by resorting to a preset
${{\cal L}_2}$
gain in the tracking layer, system stability, and robustness are tactfully ensured. The prominent feature of the proposed method lies in ensuring maneuver flexibility without assuming a constantly maintained network connectivity. Simulation results show the efficacy of the FDAFMC strategy.