A Formation Autonomous Navigation System for Unmanned Surface Vehicles With Distributed Control Strategy

By deploying unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), the efficiency and reliability of mission execution can be improved. This paper is concerned with the problem of formation autonomous navigation system (FANS) for USVs. The decision layer of the system is composed of path planning subsystem and navigation control subsystem to realize fast and effective autonomous navigation system. The FANS is constructed by leader-follower structure and distributed control strategy, which make the individuals in the formation have certain autonomy. The dynamic domain tunable fast marching square algorithm proposed in the path planning subsystem can not only adjust the safety and length of the path planned, but also continuously re-plan the path according to the motion information of the USV formation and target-vessels. Navigation control subsystem based on finite control set model predictive control can quickly and safely guide and control formation in local sea environment. The simulation tests are carried out in static and dynamic harbor environments respectively, which verifies the ability of the FANS to achieve stable formation tracking and autonomous safe navigation.