Integrating Dynamic Event-Triggered and Sensor-Tolerant Control: Application to USV-UAVs Cooperative Formation System for Maritime Parallel Search

The sensor faults and the communication burden are the core issues in fields of the intelligent maritime search control. In this paper, a robust adaptive event-triggered control strategy is presented for the underactuated surface vessel-unmanned aerial vehicles (USV-UAVs) cooperative system to implement the maritime parallel search mission. The proposed scheme is comprised of two parts, i.e., the three-dimensional (3D) search guidance principle and the cooperative formation control law. The developed guidance principle can generate the reference signals for the USV and UAVs, which the maneuvering characteristics of the heterogeneous agents are considered at the waypoints. Linked with the guidance term, a robust adaptive event-triggered control algorithm is designed for the cooperative system by fusing the dynamic event-triggered mechanism and sensor-tolerant technique. The dynamic triggered threshold is constructed on basis of the state error rather than the predefined parameters. Besides, the constrains of the sensor faults and the model uncertainties are tackled by constructing the adaptive parameter and robust neural damping term. Through the Lyapunov theorem, the semi-global uniform ultimate bounded (SGUUB) stability is guaranteed for all state variables. Finally, the advantages of the proposed scheme are evaluated on simulation platform, exhibiting the good tracking accuracy and tolerant performance in presence of the external disturbances.

Automated summary

This paper presents a robust adaptive event-triggered control strategy for the cooperative system of underactuated surface vessel-unmanned aerial vehicles (USV-UAVs) to perform maritime parallel search missions. The proposed scheme consists of a three-dimensional search guidance principle and a cooperative formation control law. By considering the maneuvering characteristics of the heterogeneous agents, the developed guidance principle generates reference signals for the USV and UAVs at waypoints. The control algorithm, which combines dynamic event-triggered mechanism and sensor-tolerant technique, ensures stable and tolerant performance.