Distributed Optimal Coordinated Control for Unmanned Surface Vehicles With Interleaved Periodic Event-Based Mechanism

In this article, we address the distributed optimal coordinated control (DOCC) problem for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) suffering from limited network channels and communication interruptions. For networked USVs, ignoring network limitations can cause serious sailing incidents. Therefore, we developed a DOCC design with a limited number of communication channels and a restricted communication range. The proposed optimal control system includes two subsystems: coordinated trajectory optimization and local trajectory tracking control. The first employs a delicately designed auxiliary system to determine the optimal solution for each USV. To address the scarcity and intermittency of communication channels, we also develop an intermittent interleaved periodic event-triggered mechanism (IIPETM) in the auxiliary system. The second subsystem adopts a neural network-based backstepping approach to achieve the tracking objective. Compared with the existing methods, the developed algorithm can interleave the triggering instants for different USVs and ensure system stability, even under communication interruptions. We demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed scheme through numerical simulations of USVs.