Adaptive Sliding Mode-based Fault-tolerant Tracking Control of Multi-USV Systems

This paper presents a fault-tolerant tracking control strategy for multiple unmanned surface vehicles (multi-USVs) based on adaptive sliding mode technique. The kinematics and dynamics of the USVs are analyzed considering external disturbances and thruster faults, and a three degree-of-free (3-DOF) USV model is developed. A novel fault-tolerant tracking control algorithm is proposed by combining integral sliding mode manifolds, fault-tolerant control, and adaptive techniques. Then, a Lyapunov function is designed to perform a rigorous stability analysis of the multi-USV systems. The proposed tracking control scheme ensures that the position and velocity tracking errors of the USVs converge to a small region even in the presence of thruster faults. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fault-tolerant tracking control algorithm.