Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Event-triggered cooperative path following control of multiple

underactuated unmanned surface vehicles with complex unknowns and
actuator saturation
Youqiang Huang a , Defeng Wu a,b ,∗, Lingyu Li a , Na Feng a
a
School of Marine Engineering, Jimei University, Xiamen 361021, PR China
b Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Xiamen 361021, PR China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords:
Underactuated unmanned surface vehicles
Event-triggered mechanism
Actuator saturation
Cooperative path following control
Uncertainty and disturbance estimator
We propose an event-triggered cooperative control scheme to address the path following problem of multiple
underactuated unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) under complex unknowns and actuator saturation. The
control law combines the line-of-sight navigation principle, backstepping technology, an uncertainty and
disturbance estimator (UDE), an auxiliary system, a high-gain observer (HGO) and an event-triggered
mechanism (ETM) to realize the path following control of individual USVs. A path update law is established
based on the synchronization scheme. Our control strategy features the following two aspects: (i) the UDE and
HGO are jointly constructed to estimate complex unknowns of USV formation with actuator saturation, and
(ii) an ETM is employed to reduce the update frequency of the controller. The system stability is proved using
the Lyapunov method. Numerical simulations and comparison with other control strategies demonstrate the
feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

1. Introduction
Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) have been indispensable in mar-
itime territorial surveillance, maritime patrol, environmental monitor-
ing, and marine resource development (Peng et al., 2021b; Huang
et al., 2021a) – among other military and civil fields – owing to
their small size, high maneuverability and low cost. However, USVs
struggle to complete many complex and special tasks because of its low
efficiency and limited execution ability. Many USV formation systems
have garnered significant attention in the industry and in the literature
because of their high efficiency and broad application spectrum. The
goal of cooperative control in multiple USVs systems is to coordinate
all the USVs and to maintain a certain position relationship or geom-
etry shape to complete a specific task. The formation control scheme
primarily includes leader–follower strategies (Dai et al., 2022; Huang
et al., 2021c), behavior-based approaches (Arrichiello et al., 2006),
virtual architecture mechanisms (Skjetne et al., 2002), and graph-based
methods (Liu et al., 2020a,b).
During the past two decades, the cooperative control of multiple
marine vehicles has received significant attention from communities
in the marine engineering field. Marine vehicles are affected by the
disturbances introduced by modeling uncertainties and unpredictable
disturbances in the marine environment (e.g. influence of the wind,
current and waves), making the controller design of marine vehicles a
challenging task (Wu et al., 2018). Many strategies have been suggested
in the literature to effectively solve the problem, but to the best of the
authors’ knowledge, at the time of writing none of them can address
all the control challenges at the same time, namely: model uncertainty
and disturbance estimation, state estimation, actuator saturation and
over-actuation.
In the following paragraphs, we summarize briefly the state of
the art of control of USVs. The distributed cooperative path following
strategy is one of the most popular control schemes for multiple ma-
rine vehicles, and many cooperative path following control variations
have been proposed. In Qu et al. (2020), Liang et al. (2021a) and
Qu et al. (2021), three cooperative path following controllers were
designed for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Modeling un-
certainty and time-varying disturbances are lumped and approximated
by an adaptive technology, e.g. a finite time unknown observer or
a fuzzy state observer. A coordinated path following control scheme
for ring-networked USVs and a command filter-based adaptive neural
network (NN) cooperative path following control method for AUVs was
proposed in Liu et al. (2020c) and Wang et al. (2018). The lumped
disturbances were identified using the NN. A distributed estimator was

∗ Corresponding author at: School of Marine Engineering, Jimei University, Xiamen 361021, PR China.
E-mail address: defeng@jmu.edu.cn (D. Wu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.110740
Received 23 September 2021; Received in revised form 30 December 2021; Accepted 28 January 2022
Available online 28 February 2022
0029-8018/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Huang et al.
employed to estimate the reference speed. Two virtual leader-based co-
operative path following controllers were developed for underactuated
USVs and fully-actuated USVs (Peng et al., 2017a; Liu et al., 2017a).
The unknown dynamics were estimated using an echo state network
(ESN). In Gu et al. (2019a,b) and Liang et al. (2021b), a coordinated
path following control method was proposed for underactuated USV
formation with lumped uncertainties identified by an extended state
observer (ESO) and a distributed finite-time observer. The focus of the
aforementioned works was to propose a strategy (NN, ESO, adaptive
technology, etc.) to identify the lumped disturbances caused by mod-
eling uncertainty and the disturbances in the maritime environment.
Meanwhile, the estimation of unknown velocities was not addressed.
A distributed coordinated path following control scheme was pro-
posed in Gu et al. (2020, 2021) and Liu et al. (2021) to solve the
cooperative path following control problem of a USV subject to com-
plex unknowns (including unknown uncertainties, disturbances and
velocities). A predictor-based NN, a data-driven neural predictor or
an integral concurrent learning-based data-driven neural predictor was
used to estimate the velocities and lumped disturbances. The authors
of Peng et al. (2020, 2021a) developed an output feedback cooperative
path following controller, where a nonlinear ESO and a data-driven
adaptive ESO were designed to estimate the unmeasured velocities and
lumped disturbances. In Peng et al. (2017b), a distributed cooperative
path following control method based on neural dynamic output feed-
back was proposed. An ESN was used to identify lumped disturbances
and estimate the unknown speed information. In Wang et al. (2014),
the cooperative path following adaptive dynamic surface control (DSC)
strategy was presented, in which an NN and a high-gain observer (HGO)
were combined to address model uncertainty, disturbances and state
estimation.
Although actuator saturation is a common problem in USVs and
has a negative impact on control performance, it was not considered
in any of the previous studies mentioned in the previous paragraphs.
In Liu et al. (2017b), a saturated coordinated path following control
scheme was proposed for underactuated USV formation with lumped
disturbances and actuator saturation. A bounded NN control law was
proposed based on a saturation function, a projection operator and
DSC technology. In Zhang et al. (2020a), a cooperative path following
control method based on the disturbance rejection mechanism was pro-
posed, in which a nonlinear disturbance observer and an auxiliary sys-
tem based on the tan-type barrier Lyapunov function were developed
to manage complex disturbances and input constraints, respectively.
The aforementioned strategies focused on problems involving complex
disturbances and actuator saturation but disregarded the effects of
unknown velocities and high-frequency updates of the controller. In Li
et al. (2021), a global finite-time cooperative path following control
strategy for underactuated USVs was proposed. An ESO was designed
to estimate complex unknowns. An auxiliary system and sliding mode
technology were combined to establish a control law to attenuate the
effect of actuator saturation.
In the traditional control scheme, a time-triggered mode is adopted
between the controller and actuator, which results in many unnecessary
control updates and increases the transmission load. An event-triggered
mechanism (ETM) is characterized by updating when a specific event-
triggered condition is satisfied. It contributes significantly to reduce the
number of updates and to enhance the transmission efficiency. In fact,
the ETM has become a popular topic in the control community. A dis-
tributed event-triggered coordinated path following control scheme was
proposed for network USV formation in Huang et al. (2021b) and Zhang
et al. (2021). The NN was employed to identify unknown dynamics.
An ETM module was proposed between the controller and the actuator
or communication network to reduce the update frequency of the
controllers or the demand for communication resources. Nonetheless,
problems associated with unknown velocities and actuator saturation
were disregarded.
2
Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740
In order to close this gap in the literature, we investigate the
control of multiple underactuated USV formations and propose an
event-triggered cooperative path following control method to coordi-
nate multiple USVs with complex unknowns and actuator saturation.
Compared with Liu et al. (2020c), Wang et al. (2018), Peng et al.
(2017a), Liu et al. (2017a), Gu et al. (2019a,b), Liang et al. (2021b),
Peng et al. (2020, 2021a) and Wang et al. (2014), Liu et al. (2017b),
Zhang et al. (2020a), practical factors of unknown uncertain dynamic,
unknown external disturbances, unknown velocities and actuator satu-
ration are considered in our proposed scheme which guarantees stable
tracking and system stability without any a priori knowledge. By in-
corporating an uncertainty and disturbance estimator (UDE), HGO and
auxiliary system, the estimations of complex disturbances and velocities
can be obtained from the information on current position measure-
ments, the effects of actuator saturation can be reduced. Compared
with neural network-based control methods (Qu et al., 2021; Gu et al.,
2020, 2021; Liu et al., 2021) and Peng et al. (2017b), Wang et al.
(2014) and Liu et al. (2017b), this scheme has a simpler design and
fewer tuning parameters. The control scheme allows for convenient and
practical implementation. Compared with the time triggered control
scheme under actuator saturation (Liu et al., 2017b; Zhang et al.,
2020a; Li et al., 2021) and the event triggered scheme without actuator
saturation (Huang et al., 2021b; Zhang et al., 2021, 2020b), a cooper-
ative path following event triggered scheme under actuator saturation
of underactuated USV formation is developed. The ETM are preset in
the channel from the controller to the saturated actuator, therefore the
number of transmitted control commands and the acting times of the
actuator are reduced.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: In Section 2,
we introduce graph theory and HGO, and formally state the problem
of cooperative path following for underactuated USVs with complex
unknowns and actuator saturation. In Section 3 we introduce the co-
operative path following controller design and present a stability proof
analysis. In Section 4, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness
of the proposed control strategy. We close this work with conclusions
in Section 5.
2. Preliminaries and problem formulation
2.1. Graph theory
In this subsection we introduce the mathematical notation used to
describe the interaction graph theory which describes the information
communication between USVs. Consider a directed graph  = {, ,
}, where  = {1,2, …, n} is the node set,  ⊆  ×  is the edge set,
and  = [𝑎𝑖𝑗 ] ∈ 𝑅𝑛×𝑛 denotes the relevant adjacency matrix. An edge
from node 𝑖 to node 𝑗 is denoted as (𝑗 , 𝑖 ) ∈ . 𝑖 = {𝑖 ∣ (𝑗 , 𝑖 )
∈ , 𝑖 ≠ 𝑗 } is known the set of neighbors. The communication between
nodes are expressed in the adjacency matrix : if node 𝑗 can send the
information to node 𝑖, 𝑎𝑖𝑗 = 1, otherwise 𝑎𝑖𝑗 = 0. The Laplacian matrix
of  is defined as  =  - , where  = diag {𝑑1 , 𝑑2 , … , 𝑑𝑛 } is a
∑
diagonal matrix, comprised of elements 𝑑𝑖 = 𝑗∈𝑖 𝑎𝑖𝑗 .
2.2. High-gain observer
In an USV system, only its the position and yaw angle are mea-
surable, and therefore the surge, sway and yaw angle velocities are
unknown. The HGO as defined in Lemma 1 is proposed to estimate the
velocities of the USV and achieve feedback.
Lemma 1 (Behtash, 1990). Suppose that the output 𝑦(𝑡) and its first
𝑛 − 1 derivatives are bounded, which implies that |𝑦(𝑘) | < 𝑌𝑘 , where 𝑘 =
1, 2, … , 𝑛 − 1 with constants 𝑌𝑘 > 0. Consider the given system as follows:
{
𝛼 𝜉̇ 𝑘 = 𝜉𝑘+1 , 𝑘 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛 − 1
(1)
𝛼 𝜉̇ 𝑛 = −𝜆1 𝜉𝑛 − 𝜆2 𝜉𝑛−1 − ⋯ − 𝜆𝑛−1 𝜉2 − 𝜉1 + 𝑦(𝑡)
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Due to the physical limitations of the actuators, the following sat-

uration constraints apply to the admissible values of surge force and
yaw moment inputs:

⎧𝜏𝑖𝑙Max , if 𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑙 > 𝜏𝑖𝑙Max

⎪
Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑙 ) = ⎨𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑙 , if 𝜏𝑖𝑙Min ≤ 𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑙 ≤ 𝜏𝑖𝑙Max (4)
⎪
⎩𝜏𝑖𝑙Min , if 𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑙 < 𝜏𝑖𝑙Min

where 𝜏𝑖𝑙Max and 𝜏𝑖𝑙Min , 𝑙 = 𝑢, 𝑟 are the maximum and minimum values
of the control force and moment, respectively; 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 = Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 ) − 𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢
and 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 = Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑟 ) − 𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑟 denote the derivations in the surge and yaw,
respectively.

2.4. Path following error model of an underactuated USV

Let (𝑥𝑖𝑝 (𝜃𝑖 ), 𝑦𝑖𝑝 (𝜃𝑖 )) be a reference curve path that is defined by the
path variable 𝜃𝑖 .
Therefore, the along path following error 𝑥𝑖𝑒 and cross path follow-
Fig. 1. Diagram illustrating the cooperative path following problem of an USV ing error 𝑦𝑖𝑒 in the path-tangent reference frame are defined as follows:
formation system.
{
𝑥𝑖𝑒 = (𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖𝑝 ) cos(𝜓𝑖𝑝 ) + (𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦𝑖𝑝 ) sin(𝜓𝑖𝑝 )
(5)
where 𝛼 is a small positive constant, and 𝜉𝑘 is the state vector of the observer, 𝑦𝑖𝑒 = −(𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖𝑝 ) sin(𝜓𝑖𝑝 ) + (𝑦𝑖 − 𝑦𝑖𝑝 ) cos(𝜓𝑖𝑝 )
with 𝑘 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛. Parameters 𝜆1 , 𝜆2 , … , 𝜆𝑛−1 are selected such that the
where 𝜓𝑖𝑝 is the path-tangential angle and is expressed as 𝜓𝑖𝑝 =
polynomial 𝑠𝑛 + 𝜆1 𝑠𝑛−1 + ⋯ + 𝜆𝑛−1 𝑠 + 1 is Hurwitz. Therefore: 𝑦′ 𝜕𝑥𝑖𝑝 (𝜃𝑖 ) 𝜕𝑦𝑖𝑝 (𝜃𝑖 )
𝜉𝑘+1
arctan( 𝑥𝑖𝑝′ ) with 𝑥′𝑖𝑝 = 𝜕𝜃𝑖
and 𝑦′𝑖𝑝 = 𝜕𝜃𝑖
.
(1) 𝛼𝑘
− 𝑦(𝑘)
= −𝛼𝛷(𝑘+1) , 𝑘
= 0, 1, 2, … , 𝑛 − 1, where 𝛷 = 𝜉𝑛 + 𝜆1 𝜉𝑛−1 + 𝑖𝑝
Based on Eq. (2), the tracking error dynamics can be calculated as
⋯ + 𝜆𝑛−1 𝜉1 , 𝛷(𝑘) is the 𝑘th derivative of 𝛷.
follows:
(2) Positive constants 𝑡∗ and 𝑏𝑘 , which depend only on 𝑌𝑘−1 (𝑘 = {
1, 2, … , 𝑛−1), 𝛼 and 𝜆𝑧 (𝑧 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛−1) exist such that |𝛷(𝑘) | < 𝑏𝑘 𝑥̇ 𝑖𝑒 = 𝑢𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) − 𝑣𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 𝜃̇ 𝑖
for all 𝑡 > 𝑡∗ (6)
𝑦̇ 𝑖𝑒 = 𝑢𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝑣𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) − 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑥𝑖𝑒
√
2.3. Mechanic description of the underactuated USV model ̇
where 𝜓̃ 𝑖 = 𝜓𝑖 − 𝜓𝑖𝑝 , 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 = 𝑥′2 ′2
𝑖𝑝 + 𝑦𝑖𝑝 and 𝜃𝑖 = 𝜈𝑠 − 𝜔𝑖 , with 𝜈𝑠 being the
reference speed and 𝜔𝑖 being the cooperative variable.
Consider a group of 𝑛 USVs. The USV formation system is illustrated
in Fig. 1. The three-degree-of-freedom mechanical model of each USV
with complex disturbances is derived from the laws of motion (Fossen, 2.5. Cooperative control mechanism
2011) and result in the Eqs. (2) and (3):
⎧𝑥̇ 𝑖 = 𝑢𝑖 cos(𝜓𝑖 ) − 𝑣𝑖 sin(𝜓𝑖 )
⎪ To achieve the cooperative path following, we define the coordina-
⎨𝑦̇ 𝑖 = 𝑢𝑖 sin(𝜓𝑖 ) + 𝑣𝑖 cos(𝜓𝑖 ) (2) tion error of the formation based on the information of the neighbors
⎪
⎩𝜓̇ 𝑖 = 𝑟𝑖 as follows:
∑
where 𝑥𝑖 , 𝑦𝑖 and 𝜓𝑖 denote the along position, cross position and yaw 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑎𝑖𝑗 (𝜃𝑖 − 𝜃𝑗 ) (7)
angle of the 𝑖th USV in the earth-fixed frame, respectively; 𝑢𝑖 , 𝑣𝑖 and 𝑟𝑖 𝑗∈𝑖
are the surge velocity, sway velocity and yaw angle velocity of the 𝑖th
USV in the body-fixed frame, respectively. According to the directed graph theory, Eq. (7) can be described as
𝑒 = 𝜃, where 𝑒 = [𝑒1 , 𝑒2 , … , 𝑒𝑛 ]𝑇 and 𝜃 = [𝜃1 , 𝜃2 , … , 𝜃𝑛 ]𝑇 .
⎧𝑚 𝑢̇ = 𝑚 𝑣 𝑟 − (𝑑 + 𝛥𝑑 )𝑢 + 𝜏 + 𝜏
⎪ 𝑖𝑢 𝑖 𝑖𝑣 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑢 Taking the time derivative of e yields:
⎪𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̇ 𝑖 = −𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 𝑟𝑖 − (𝑑𝑖𝑣 + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 )𝑣𝑖 + 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣
⎨ (3)
𝑒̇ = −𝜔 (8)
⎪𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̇ 𝑖 = (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢𝑖 𝑣𝑖 − (𝑑𝑖𝑟 + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 )𝑟𝑖 + 𝜏𝑖𝑟
⎪ + 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑟
⎩ where 𝜔 = [𝜔1 , 𝜔2 , … , 𝜔𝑛 ]𝑇 .
where 𝑚𝑖𝑢 , 𝑚𝑖𝑣 and 𝑚𝑖𝑟 are the inertia components of the 𝑖th USV, Combining Eqs. (3) and (6) with (8), the cooperative path following
𝑑𝑖𝑢 , 𝑑𝑖𝑣 and 𝑑𝑖𝑟 are the hydrodynamic damp of the 𝑖th USV, 𝜏𝑖𝑢 and 𝜏𝑖𝑟 error dynamics can be summarized as follows:
are the surge control force and yaw control moment of the 𝑖th USV,
−𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 , −𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 and −𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖 are the modeling uncertainties of the 𝑖th ⎧
⎪𝑥̇ 𝑖𝑒 = 𝑢𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) − 𝑣𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝜃̇ 𝑖
∗
USV, 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑢 , 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣 and 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑟 are the disturbances of the 𝑖th USV due to wind, ⎪𝑦̇ = 𝑢 sin(𝜓̃ ) + 𝑣 cos(𝜓̃ ) − 𝜓̇ 𝑥
waves and currents, respectively. ⎪ 𝑖𝑒 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑝 𝑖𝑒
⎪𝜓̇ 𝑖 = 𝑟𝑖
⎪
Assumption 1. The velocities 𝑢𝑖 , 𝑣𝑖 and 𝑟𝑖 of the 𝑖th USV are not ⎪𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̇ 𝑖 = 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 𝑟𝑖 − (𝑑𝑖𝑢 + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 )𝑢𝑖 + 𝜏𝑖𝑢 + 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑢
⎨ (9)
available for feedback. ⎪𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̇ 𝑖 = −𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 𝑟𝑖 − (𝑑𝑖𝑣 + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 )𝑣𝑖 + 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣
⎪𝑚 𝑟̇ = (𝑚 − 𝑚 )𝑢 𝑣 − (𝑑 + 𝛥𝑑 )𝑟 + 𝜏
Remark 1. Due to the limitation of currently available sensors, it is ⎪ 𝑖𝑟 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑣 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝑖 𝑖𝑟
⎪ + 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑟
difficult to directly measure the velocities 𝑢𝑖 , 𝑣𝑖 and 𝑟𝑖 of the 𝑖th USV, ⎪
therefore they are unavailable for feedback. ⎪𝑒̇ = −𝜔
⎩

3
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the event-triggered cooperative path following control strategy.

The cooperative path following error dynamics are rewritten as: The complex disturbances affecting the 𝑖th USV are derived based
on Eq. (3) as follows:
⎧ ∗ ̇
⎪𝑥̇ 𝑖𝑒 = 𝑢𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) − 𝑣𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝜃𝑖 ⎧
⎪𝑦̇ = 𝑢 sin(𝜓̃ ) + 𝑣 cos(𝜓̃ ) − 𝜓̇ 𝑥 ⎪𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑢 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖
⎪ 𝑖𝑒 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑝 𝑖𝑒
⎪
⎪𝜓̇ 𝑖 = 𝑟𝑖 = 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̇ 𝑖 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 𝑟𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 − 𝜏𝑖𝑢
⎪
⎪ ⎪𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖
⎨𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̇ 𝑖 = 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 𝑟𝑖 − 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 + 𝜏𝑖𝑢 + 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 (10) (11)
⎨
⎪ ⎪ = 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̇ 𝑖 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 𝑟𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖
⎪𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̇ 𝑖 = −𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 𝑟𝑖 − 𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 + 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 ⎪𝑢 = 𝜏 − 𝛥𝑑 𝑟
⎪𝑚 𝑟̇ = (𝑚 − 𝑚 )𝑢 𝑣 − 𝑑 𝑟 + 𝜏 + 𝑢 ⎪ 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝑖
⎪ 𝑖𝑟 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑣 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑟 𝑖 𝑖𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑟
⎪
⎪𝑒̇ = −𝜔 = 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̇ 𝑖 − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢𝑖 𝑣𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖 − 𝜏𝑖𝑟
⎩
⎩
The complex disturbances are estimated as follows:
where 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑢 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 , 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 and 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑟 = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑟 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖
are the complex disturbances, lumped disturbances, and uncertainties ⎧ ⨂ ⨂
affecting the 𝑖th USV, respectively. ⎪𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑢
⎪ (𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̇ 𝑖 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 𝑟𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 − 𝜏𝑖𝑢 )
⎪ ⨂ ⨂
⎪𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑣 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑣
⎨ (12)
3. Event-triggered cooperative path following control design and ⎪ (𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̇ 𝑖 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 𝑟𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 )
stability analysis ⎪𝑢̂ = 𝑔 ⨂ 𝑢 = 𝑔 ⨂
⎪ 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑓 𝑖𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑓 𝑖𝑟
⎪ (𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̇ 𝑖 − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢𝑖 𝑣𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖 − 𝜏𝑖𝑟 )
⎩
Here we propose the event-triggered cooperative path following
where 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢 , 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣 and 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑟 are the estimations of the complex disturbances
controller for underactuated USVs, subject to complex unknowns and ⨂
𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 , 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 and 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑟 , respectively; denotes the traditional convolution
actuator saturation. The architecture of the proposed controller is
operation, 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑢 , 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑣 and 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑟 are the impulse responses of the unity gain
shown in Fig. 2. A UDE and an HGO are designed to estimate complex
and zero-phase-shift filters 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑢 (𝑠), 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑣 (𝑠) and 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑟 (𝑠) over the spectra
unknowns including unknown uncertainties, disturbances, and veloci-
of 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 , 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 and 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑟 , respectively.
ties. An auxiliary system and ETM are developed to attenuate the effects
The Laplace transforms of Eq. (12) are as follows:
caused by actuator saturation and continuous updating of the actuator,
which significantly improve its performance. ⎧̂
⎪𝑈𝑑𝑖𝑢 (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑢 (𝑠)𝑈𝑑𝑖𝑢 (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑢 (𝑠)
In the following subsections, we detail the building blocks of the ⎪ (𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 (𝑠) − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 (𝑠)𝑟𝑖 (𝑠) + 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 (𝑠) − 𝜏𝑖𝑢 (𝑠))
proposed control strategy for underactuated USVs: UDE, HGO, in- ⎪
⎪𝑈̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣 (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑣 (𝑠)𝑈𝑑𝑖𝑣 (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑣 (𝑠)
dividual path following controller, and cooperative path following ⎨ (13)
⎪ (𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 (𝑠) + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖 (𝑠)𝑟𝑖 (𝑠) + 𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣𝑖 (𝑠))
controller. Finally, stability of the system is demonstrated using the ⎪𝑈̂ (𝑠) = 𝐺 (𝑠)𝑈 (𝑠) = 𝐺 (𝑠)(𝑠𝑚 𝑟 (𝑠)
Lyapunov theory. ⎪ 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑓 𝑖𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑓 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝑖
⎪ − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢𝑖 (𝑠)𝑣𝑖 (𝑠) + 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖 (𝑠) − 𝜏𝑖𝑟 (𝑠))
⎩
1
3.1. Uncertainty and disturbance estimator block where 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝜄 (𝑠) = 𝑇 𝑠+1 , 𝜄 = 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑟 is a filter and 𝑇𝑖𝜄 is a positive constant.
𝑖𝜄
Based on the proof of Theorem 4 from Ren et al. (2017), we have:

To estimate complex disturbances, a UDE is proposed. lim 𝑠 ⋅ (1 − 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝜄 (𝑠))𝑈𝑑𝑖𝜄 (𝑠) = 0 (14)

𝑠→0

4
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

According to the final-value theorem, where 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̂𝜄(𝑡), (𝜄 = 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑟) denotes the estimation errors of the complex
disturbances whose velocities are replaced by their estimations.
lim 𝑢̃ (𝑡) = lim (𝑢𝑑𝑖𝜄 (𝑡) − 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝜄 (𝑡)) = 0 (15)
𝑡→∞ 𝑑𝑖𝜄 𝑡→∞ The errors of the complex disturbances whose velocities are re-
where 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝜄 (𝑡), 𝜄 = 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑟 denotes the estimation error of the complex placed by the estimations are defined as follows:
disturbances.
⎧𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ = 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 (𝑢̂ 𝑖 − 𝑢𝑖 )
Therefore, the UDE of the USV is asymptotically stable. ⎪
⎨𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̃ = 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̂ 𝑖 − 𝑣𝑖 ) (26)
⎪
3.2. High-gain observer block ⎩𝑢𝑑𝑖̃𝑟 = 𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑟 = 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 (̂𝑟𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖 )
where 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ , 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̃ and 𝑢𝑑𝑖̃𝑟 are the complex disturbances errors caused by
Since the surge, sway and yaw angle velocities are unavailable due the HGO.
to sensor limitations, they must be estimated by the HGO to guarantee The total estimation errors of the complex disturbances are calcu-
full feedback in the controller design. The HGO is implemented as lated as follows:
follows:
{ ⎧𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ = 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢
𝜖𝑖 𝜋̇ 1𝑖 = 𝜋2𝑖 ⎪
(16) ⎪ = (𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ ) + (𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢 )
𝜖𝑖 𝜋̇ 2𝑖 = −𝜁1𝑖 𝜋2𝑖 − 𝜋1𝑖 + 𝜂𝑖 ⎪ = 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 (𝑢̂ 𝑖 − 𝑢𝑖 )
⎪
where 𝜋1𝑖 ∈ R3 and 𝜋2𝑖 ∈ R3 denote the states of the HGO, 𝜖𝑖 is a small ⎪𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̃ = 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣
parameter, and 𝜁1𝑖 is a positive constant. The estimations of the position ⎪
⎨ = (𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ ) + (𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣 ) (27)
vector 𝜂𝑖 = [𝑥𝑖 , 𝑦𝑖 , 𝜓𝑖 ]𝑇 and its first derivative 𝜂̇ 𝑖 are as follows: ⎪
⎪ = 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̂ 𝑖 − 𝑣𝑖 )
𝜂̂𝑖 = 𝜋1𝑖 (17) ⎪𝑢̃ = 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑟
⎪ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟
⎪ = (𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 − 𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 ) + (𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑟 )
1 ⎪
𝜂̂̇ 𝑖 = 𝜋2𝑖 (18) ⎩ = 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 + 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 (̂𝑟𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖 )
𝜖𝑖
Based on Eqs. (2) and (18), the estimation 𝜈̂𝑖 of the velocity vector Based on Eqs. (21) and (25), the total estimation errors of complex
𝜈𝑖 = [𝑢𝑖 , 𝑣𝑖 , 𝑟𝑖 ]𝑇 is expressed as: disturbances is bounded: |𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝜄| = |𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝜄 − 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝜄 | ≤ 𝛿𝑖𝜄 , where 𝛿𝑖𝜄 is a positive
constant. Therefore, the total estimation error of complex disturbances
1
𝜈̂𝑖 = 𝐽 𝑇 (𝜓𝑖 ) 𝜋 (19) can converge to a value as small as required by appropriately adjusting
𝜖𝑖 2𝑖
the parameter 𝑇𝑖𝜄 .
⎡cos(𝜓𝑖 ) − sin(𝜓𝑖 ) 0⎤ Substituting Eqs. (20) and (27) into Eq. (10), the cooperative path
where 𝐽 (𝜓𝑖 ) = ⎢ sin(𝜓𝑖 ) cos(𝜓𝑖 ) 0⎥ is the rotation matrix.
⎢ ⎥ following error dynamics can be rewritten as follows:
⎣ 0 0 1⎦
Based on Eqs. (2) and (19), 𝐽 (𝜓𝑖 ) = 𝐽 −1 (𝜓𝑖 ) and property (1) of
𝑇 ⎧
⎪𝑥̇ 𝑖𝑒 = 𝑢𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) − 𝑣𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝜃̇ 𝑖
∗
Lemma 1, we obtain: ⎪𝑦̇ = 𝑢 sin(𝜓̃ ) + 𝑣 cos(𝜓̃ ) − 𝜓̇ 𝑥
𝜋 ⎪ 𝑖𝑒 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑝 𝑖𝑒
𝜈̃𝑖 = 𝜈̂𝑖 − 𝜈𝑖 = 𝐽 𝑇 (𝜓𝑖 )( 2𝑖 − 𝜂̇ 𝑖 ) = −𝜖𝑖 𝐽 𝑇 (𝜓𝑖 )𝛹̈ 𝑖 (20) ⎪𝜓̇ 𝑖 = 𝑟𝑖
𝜖𝑖 ⎪
⎪𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̂̇ 𝑖 = 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̂ 𝑖 − 𝑣̃𝑖 )(̂𝑟𝑖 − 𝑟̃𝑖 ) − 𝑑𝑖𝑢 (𝑢̂ 𝑖 − 𝑢̃ 𝑖 )
where 𝛹𝑖 = 𝜋2𝑖 + 𝜁1𝑖 𝜋1𝑖 . ⎨ (28)
Based on (20), ‖𝐽 (𝜓𝑖 )‖ = 1 and property (2) of Lemma 1, we have: ⎪ +𝜏𝑖𝑢 + (𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ ) + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃̇ 𝑖
⎪𝑚 𝑟̂̇ = (𝑚 − 𝑚 )(𝑢̂ − 𝑢̃ )(𝑣̂ − 𝑣̃ )
‖𝜈̃𝑖 ‖ = ‖𝜈̂𝑖 − 𝜈𝑖 ‖ = 𝜖𝑖 ‖𝛹̈ 𝑖 ‖ ≤ 𝜖𝑖 𝑊𝑖 (21) ⎪ 𝑖𝑟 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑣 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖
⎪ −𝑑𝑖𝑟 (̂𝑟𝑖 − 𝑟̃𝑖 ) + 𝜏𝑖𝑟 + (𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖
⎪
]𝑇
where 𝑊𝑖 is a positive constant, and 𝜈̃𝑖 = [𝑢̃ 𝑖 , 𝑣̃𝑖 , 𝑟̃𝑖 is the estimation ⎪𝑒̇ = −𝜔
error of the velocity vector of the 𝑖th USV. ⎩
The complex disturbances whose velocities are replaced by their
estimations are defined as follows: 3.3. Individual path following block
⎧𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑢 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̂ 𝑖
⎪ An individual path following controller was constructed for each
⎨𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣̂ 𝑖 (22)
⎪ USV in three steps. First, a line-of-sight (LOS) navigation-principle-
⎩𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 = 𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑟 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̂𝑖
based kinematic guidance law was established. Subsequently, an aux-
The estimations of the complex disturbances whose velocities are iliary system was employed to attenuate the effects of actuator satura-
replaced by their estimations are as follows: tion. Finally, a dynamic control law was established by incorporating
⨂ ⨂ the auxiliary system, UDE and HGO and a backstepping technology.
⎧𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑢 (𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑢 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̂ 𝑖 ) = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̂
⎪ ⨂ ⨂ Step 1. To design the controller, the following errors are defined:
⎨𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑣 (𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑣 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 𝑣̂ 𝑖 ) = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑣 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ (23)
⎪ ⨂ ⨂ ⎧𝑞 = 𝑢 − 𝛼 , 𝑞 = 𝑟 − 𝛼
⎩𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑟 (𝜏𝑤𝑖𝑟 − 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̂𝑖 ) = 𝑔𝑓 𝑖𝑟 𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝑟
⎪ 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑟

where 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ , 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ and 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 are the estimations of 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ , 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ and 𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 . ⎪𝑠𝑖𝑢 = 𝑢𝑖 − 𝑢𝑖𝑡 − 𝑢𝑖𝑎 , 𝑠𝑖𝑟 = 𝑟𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖𝑡 − 𝑟𝑖𝑎
⎪
The Laplace transforms of Eq. (23) are as follows: ⎨𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 = 𝑢̂ 𝑖 − 𝑢𝑖𝑡 − 𝑢𝑖𝑎 , 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 = 𝑟̂𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖𝑡 − 𝑟𝑖𝑎 (29)
⎪𝑢̃ = 𝑠̃ = 𝑠̂ − 𝑠 , 𝑟̃ = 𝑠̃ = 𝑠̂ − 𝑠 ,
⎧𝑈̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑢 (𝑠)𝑈𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ (𝑠) ⎪ 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟
⎪ ⎪𝜓𝑖𝑒 = 𝜓𝑖 − 𝜓𝑖𝑑 , 𝛽̂𝑖𝑑 = arctan 𝑣̂𝑖
⎨𝑈̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑣 (𝑠)𝑈𝑑𝑖𝑣̂ (𝑠) (24) ⎩ 𝑢̂ 𝑖
⎪̂
⎩𝑈𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 (𝑠) = 𝐺𝑓 𝑖𝑟 (𝑠)𝑈𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 (𝑠) where 𝛼𝑖𝑢 , 𝛼𝑖𝑟 and 𝜓𝑖𝑑 denote the virtual guidance signals; 𝑢𝑖𝑡 and 𝑟𝑖𝑡
represent the states of the tracking differentiators; 𝑢𝑖𝑎 and 𝑟𝑖𝑎 denote
Using the final-value theorem in Eq. (24) we obtain:
the auxiliary states; 𝑢̂ 𝑖 , 𝑣̂ 𝑖 and 𝑟̂𝑖 represent the estimations of 𝑢𝑖 , 𝑣𝑖 and
lim 𝑢̃ (𝑡) = lim (𝑢𝑑𝑖̂𝜄(𝑡) − 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝜄(𝑡)) = 0 (25) 𝑟𝑖 , respectively.
𝑡→∞ 𝑑𝑖̂𝜄 𝑡→∞

5
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Substituting Eq. (29) into (28), the path following error dynamics where 𝑘𝑖𝑢 and 𝑘𝑖𝑟 are positive parameters.
can be rewritten as: To reduce the update frequency of the controllers, the ETM is
⎧𝑥̇ = 𝜓̃ 𝑖 designed as follows:
𝛼𝑖𝑢 + 𝑞𝑖𝑢 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝑢̃ 𝑖 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎 − 2𝑢𝑖 sin2 ( ) {
⎪ 𝑖𝑒 2
⎪ − 𝑣𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 (𝜈𝑠 − 𝜔𝑖 ) 𝜏𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 ) = Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖𝑘 )), ∀𝑡𝑢𝑖 ∈ [𝑡𝑢𝑖𝑘 , 𝑡𝑢𝑖(𝑘+1) )
⎪ (38)
⎨𝑦̇ 𝑖𝑒 = 𝑈̂ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 − 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 𝛽̂𝑖𝑑 ) − 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑥𝑖𝑒 (30) 𝜏𝑖𝑟 (𝑡𝑟𝑖 ) = Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑟 (𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘 )), ∀𝑡𝑟𝑖 ∈ [𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘 , 𝑡𝑟𝑖(𝑘+1) )
⎪
⎪ + 𝑈̂ 𝑖 𝜗𝑖 − (𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 )) The event-triggered conditions are defined as:
⎪𝜓̇ = 𝛼𝑖𝑟 + 𝑞𝑖𝑟 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − 𝑟̃𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖𝑎 − 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑑
⎩ 𝑖𝑒 ⎧𝑡 𝑢 = inf {𝑡𝑢𝑖 ∈ 𝑅 ∣ |𝐸𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 )|
√ ⎪ 𝑖(𝑘+1)
where 𝑈̂ 𝑖 = 𝑢̂ 2𝑖 + 𝑣̂ 2𝑖 and 𝜗𝑖 = sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 + 𝛽̂𝑖𝑑 ) − sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 − 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 𝛽̂𝑖𝑑 ). ⎪ ≥ 𝜌𝑢𝑖 |Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 ))| + 𝜅𝑖𝑢 }, 𝑡𝑢𝑖1 = 0
⎨𝑟 (39)
According to the LOS navigation principle, the virtual guidance ⎪𝑡𝑖(𝑘+1) = inf {𝑡𝑟𝑖 ∈ 𝑅 ∣ |𝐸𝑖𝑟 (𝑡𝑟𝑖 )|
signals of the 𝑖th USV are defined as follows: ⎪ ≥ 𝜌𝑟𝑖 |Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑟 (𝑡𝑟𝑖 ))| + 𝜅𝑖𝑟 }, 𝑡𝑟𝑖1 = 0
⎩
𝜓̃
⎧𝛼𝑖𝑢 = −𝑘𝑖1 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 𝜈𝑠 + 2𝑢̂ 𝑖 sin2 ( 2𝑖 ) where 𝐸𝑖𝑢 =Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 )) − 𝜏𝑖𝑢 and 𝐸𝑖𝑟 =Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑟 (𝑡𝑟𝑖 )) − 𝜏𝑖𝑟 denote the event-
⎪
⎪ + 𝑣̂ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) triggered errors; 𝑡𝑢𝑖𝑘 , 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘 , and 𝑘 ∈ 𝑍 + denote the update times of the
⎨ 𝑦𝑖𝑒 𝑈̂ 𝑖 𝜗𝑖 (31) controller; 0 < 𝜌𝑢𝑖 , 𝜌𝑟𝑖 < 0 and 𝜅𝑖𝑢 , 𝜅𝑖𝑟 > 0 are event-triggered parameters.
⎪𝛼𝑖𝑟 = −𝑘𝑖2 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑑 − 𝜓𝑖𝑒 Substituting Eq. (37) into Eq. (28), we obtain the following kinetic
⎪𝜓 = 𝜓 − arctan 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝛽̂
⎩ 𝑖𝑑 𝑖𝑝 𝛥𝑖 𝑖𝑑 error dynamics:
where 𝛥𝑖 is the look-ahead distance of the 𝑖th USV and 𝑘𝑖1 and 𝑘𝑖2 are ⎧ ̇
positive constants. ⎪𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 = −𝑘𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 − 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃ 𝑖
⎪ − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̂𝑖 + 𝑣̂ 𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 ) + 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖
Starting from Eq. (31) and after some algebraic manipulation, we ⎪
have: ⎪ − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃̇ 𝑖
⎨ (40)
sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 − 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 𝛽̂𝑖𝑑 ) = sin(𝜓𝑖𝑑 − 𝜓𝑖𝑝 + 𝛽̂𝑖𝑑 ) ̇
⎪𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 = −𝑘𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 − 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃𝑖
𝑦 ⎪ − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )(𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖 + 𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ) − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟
= sin(− arctan( 𝑖𝑒 )) ⎪
𝛥𝑖 (32) ⎪ + (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖
𝑦𝑖𝑒 ⎩
= −√
𝑦2𝑖𝑒 + 𝛥2𝑖 3.4. Cooperative path following block

Substituting Eqs. (31) and (32) into (30), we obtain the following In the previous subsection, the event-triggered path following con-
path following error dynamics: trol law was designed for each USV subject to complex unknowns and
⎧𝑥̇ 𝑖𝑒 = −𝑘𝑖1 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 𝑞𝑖𝑢 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝑢̃ 𝑖 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎 + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 actuator saturation. Now, in order to extend it to a cooperation strategy
⎪ 𝜓̃ for a USV formation, we define the cooperative path variable, 𝜔𝑖 . Its
⎪ + 2𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin2 ( 2𝑖 ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 𝜔𝑖
⎪ update law is expressed as follows:
̂ {
⎨𝑦̇ 𝑖𝑒 = −𝑘𝑖𝑦 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 𝑈𝑖 𝜗𝑖 (33)
⎪ − (𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 )) 𝜔𝑖 = −𝑘𝜔𝑖 𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 + 𝑘𝜔𝑖 𝑒𝑖 + 𝜔̄ 𝑖
⎪ (41)
⎪𝜓̇ = −𝑘 𝜓 + 𝑞 + 𝑠̂ − 𝑟̃ − 𝑟 − 𝑦𝑖𝑒 𝑈̂ 𝑖 𝜗𝑖 𝜔̄̇ 𝑖 = −𝑘𝜔𝑖
̄ 𝜔̄ 𝑖 − 𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢∗ + 𝑒𝑖 𝑖𝑑
⎩ 𝑖𝑒 𝑖2 𝑖𝑒 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝑖 𝑖𝑎 𝜓 𝑖𝑒
where 𝜔̄ 𝑖 is the intermediate state variable, and 𝑘𝜔𝑖 and 𝑘𝜔𝑖 ̄ are positive
𝑈̂ 𝑖
where 𝑘𝑖𝑦 = √ > 0. parameters.
𝑦2𝑖𝑒 +𝛥2𝑖
Combining Eqs. (8), (33), (34) and (40), the error subsystem of
Step 2. To compensate for the effects of actuator saturation, an
𝑥𝑖𝑒 , 𝑦𝑖𝑒 , 𝜓𝑖𝑒 , 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 , 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 , 𝑢𝑖𝑎 , 𝑟𝑖𝑎 and e can be summarized as follows:
auxiliary system is designed as follows:
⎧𝑥̇ = −𝑘𝑖1 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 𝑞𝑖𝑢 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝑢̃ 𝑖 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎
⎧ 1 ⎪ 𝑖𝑒
⎪𝑢̇ 𝑖𝑎 = −𝑘𝑖3 𝑢𝑖𝑎 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 ⎪ + 2𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin2 (
𝜓̃ 𝑖
) + 𝑣̃𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 )
⎨ (34) 2
1 ⎪
⎪𝑟̇ 𝑖𝑎 = −𝑘𝑖4 𝑟𝑖𝑎 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 ⎪ + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 + 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 𝜔𝑖
⎩
⎪𝑦̇ = −𝑘𝑖𝑦 𝑦𝑖𝑒 − 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 𝑈̂ 𝑖 𝜗𝑖
where 𝑘𝑖3 and 𝑘𝑖4 are positive constants. ⎪ 𝑖𝑒
⎪ − (𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ))
Step 3. The following two tracking differentiators are defined to ⎪ 𝑦𝑖𝑒 𝑈̂ 𝑖 𝜗𝑖
obtain 𝑢𝑖𝑡 , 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑡 , 𝑟𝑖𝑡 and 𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑡 : ⎪𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑒 = −𝑘𝑖2 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 𝑞𝑖𝑟 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − 𝑟̃𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖𝑎 −
{ ⎪ 𝜓𝑖𝑒

𝑢̇ 𝑖𝑡 = 𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑡 ⎪𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂̇ 𝑖𝑢 = −𝑘𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 − 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃ 𝑖

(35) ⎪
𝑢̇ 𝑑𝑖𝑡 = −𝜇𝑖𝑢2 (𝑢 − 𝛼 ) − 2𝜇 𝑢𝑑
𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑡 ⎨ − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̂𝑖 + 𝑣̂ 𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 ) + 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 (42)
⎪ − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃̇ 𝑖
and ⎪
{ ⎪𝑚 𝑠̂̇ = −𝑘𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 − 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃𝑖
𝑟̇ 𝑖𝑡 = 𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑡 ⎪ 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟
2 (𝑟
(36) ⎪ − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )(𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖 + 𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ) − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟
𝑟̇ 𝑑𝑖𝑡 = −𝜇𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑡 − 𝛼𝑖𝑟 ) − 2𝜇𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑡 ⎪
⎪ + (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖
where 𝜇𝑖𝑢 and 𝜇𝑖𝑟 are positive parameters. Based on the convergence ⎪𝑢̇ 1
⎪ 𝑖𝑎 = −𝑘𝑖3 𝑢𝑖𝑎 + 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢
analysis of tracking differentiators from Guo and Zhao (2011), we 𝑚𝑖𝑢
obtain |𝑢𝑖𝑡 − 𝛼𝑖𝑢 | ≤ 𝑞𝑖𝑢
∗ and |𝑟 − 𝛼 | ≤ 𝑞 ∗ , where 𝑞 ∗ and 𝑞 ∗ are positive ⎪𝑟̇ = −𝑘𝑖4 𝑟𝑖𝑎 + 1
𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟
𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑟 ⎪ 𝑖𝑎 𝑚𝑖𝑟
constants. ⎪𝑒̇ = −𝜔
Combining the HGO, UDE and auxiliary system defined previously, ⎩
a control law for the dynamic behavior of the USV is established: 3.5. Stability analysis
⎧𝜏 = −𝑘 𝑚 𝑠̂ + 𝑚 𝑢𝑑 − 𝑚 𝑣̂ 𝑟̂ + 𝑑 𝑢̂
⎪ 𝑖𝑐𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑣 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑢 𝑖
In the previous subsection, a cooperative path following controller is
⎪ − 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ − 𝑘𝑖3 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢𝑖𝑎
⎨ (37) designed for the underactuated USV formation with complex unknowns
𝑑
⎪𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑟 = −𝑘𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖𝑡 − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖 and actuator saturation and in this subsection, we analyze the stability
⎪ + 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̂𝑖 − 𝑢̂ 𝑑𝑖̂𝑟 − 𝑘𝑖4 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖𝑎 of the closed-loop system.
⎩

6
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Theorem 1. The error subsystem can be regarded as a closed-loop system Substituting the above inequalities in Eq. (46) to calculate an upper
with 𝑥𝑖𝑒 , 𝑦𝑖𝑒 , 𝜓𝑖𝑒 , 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 , 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 , 𝑢𝑖𝑎 , 𝑟𝑖𝑎 and e as the states, 𝑞𝑖𝑢 , 𝑞𝑖𝑟 , 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 , 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 , 𝑢̂ 𝑖 , bound for 𝑉̇ :
𝑣̂ 𝑖 , 𝑟̂𝑖 , 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ and 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟 as the inputs. All the states of the closed-loop system are ∑𝑛
7
uniformly ultimately bounded. 𝑉̇ ≤ {−(𝑘𝑖1 − )𝑥2𝑖𝑒 − (𝑘𝑖𝑦 − 1)𝑦2𝑖𝑒
𝑖=1
2
𝑑𝑖𝑢 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢
Proof. Consider the following Lyapunov function: − (𝑘𝑖2 − 2)𝜓𝑖𝑒2 − (𝑘𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑢 −
2
1∑ 2
𝑛
3𝑚𝑖𝑣 + 2 2 𝑑𝑖𝑟 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟
𝑉 = {𝑥 + 𝑦2𝑖𝑒 + 𝜓𝑖𝑒2 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑢 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 − )𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − (𝑘𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑟 −
2 𝑖=1 𝑖𝑒 (43) 2 2
3(𝑚𝑖𝑣 − 𝑚𝑖𝑢 ) + 2 2 1 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 2
1 𝑇 −1 − )𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − (𝑘𝑖3 − )𝑢𝑖𝑎
+ 𝑢2𝑖𝑎 + 𝑟2𝑖𝑎 + 𝜔̄ 2𝑖 } +
𝑒  𝑒 2 2𝑚𝑖𝑢
2
∗
𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢𝑖𝑑
Taking the derivative of V in Eq. (43) with respect to the time is: 1 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 2
− (𝑘𝑖4 − )𝑟𝑖𝑎 − 𝑘𝜔𝑖 ( − 1)2 𝑒2𝑖 (47)
2𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑒𝑖
∑
𝑛
𝑉̇ = {𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑥̇ 𝑖𝑒 + 𝑦𝑖𝑒 𝑦̇ 𝑖𝑒 + 𝜓𝑖𝑒 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑒 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂̇ 𝑖𝑢 1 2 1 𝑑𝑖𝑢 + (𝑚𝑖𝑣 − 𝑚𝑖𝑢 )𝑣̂ 2𝑖 2
𝑖=1
− 𝑘𝜔𝑖
̄ 𝜔̄ 2𝑖 + 𝑞𝑖𝑢 + 𝑞𝑖𝑟2 + 𝑢̃ 𝑖
(44) 2 2 2
+ 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂̇ 𝑖𝑟 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎 𝑢̇ 𝑖𝑎 + 𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑟̇ 𝑖𝑎 + 𝜔̄ 𝑖 𝜔̄̇ 𝑖 } 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (̂𝑟2𝑖 + 𝑟̃2𝑖 ) + (𝑚𝑖𝑣 − 𝑚𝑖𝑢 )(𝑢̂ 2𝑖 + 𝑢̃ 2𝑖 ) + 2 2
+ 𝑣̃𝑖
+ 𝑒𝑇 −1 𝑒̇ 2
2
𝑑𝑖𝑢 + 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̂ 𝑖 2 𝑚𝑖𝑢 2 𝑚𝑖𝑟 2
Substituting (42) into (44), we have + 𝑟̃𝑖 + 𝑢̃̇ + 𝑟̃̇
2 2 𝑖 2 𝑖
∑
𝑛
1 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 1 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟
𝑉̇ = {−𝑘𝑖1 𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 𝑥𝑖𝑒 (𝑞𝑖𝑢 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝑢̃ 𝑖 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎 + (𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 )2 + (𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 )2 }
𝑖=1 2𝑚𝑖𝑢 2𝑚𝑖𝑟
𝜓̃ 𝑖 According to Lemma 1, the proof of HGO for USV (Section 3.2)
+ 2𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin2 ( ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑦𝑖𝑒 + 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 𝜔𝑖 )
2 and the saturation constraints of the control force and moment, we
− 𝑘𝑖𝑦 𝑦2𝑖𝑒 + 𝑦𝑖𝑒 (−𝜓̇ 𝑖𝑝 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 𝑈̂ 𝑖 𝜗𝑖 − (𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) know that 𝑢̂ 𝑖 , 𝑣̂ 𝑖 , 𝑟̂𝑖 , 𝑢̃ 𝑖 , 𝑣̃𝑖 , 𝑟̃𝑖 , 𝑢̃̇ 𝑖 and 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖 are bounded. Therefore, we have
𝑑𝑖𝑢 +(𝑚𝑖𝑣 −𝑚𝑖𝑢 )𝑣̂ 2𝑖 2 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (̂𝑟2𝑖 +̃𝑟2𝑖 )+(𝑚𝑖𝑣 −𝑚𝑖𝑢 )(𝑢̂ 2𝑖 +𝑢̃ 2𝑖 )+2 2 𝑑𝑖𝑢 +𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̂ 2𝑖 2 𝑚𝑖𝑢 2 𝑚𝑖𝑟 2
+ 𝑣̃𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ))) − 𝑘𝑖2 𝜓𝑖𝑒2 + 𝜓𝑖𝑒 (𝑞𝑖𝑟 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − 𝑟̃𝑖 𝑢̃ +
𝑖 𝑖 𝑣̃ + 𝑖 𝑟̃ + 𝑢̃̇ + 𝑟̃̇ ≤
𝑖 𝑖
2 2 2 2 2
𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢∗
𝑦 𝑈̂ 𝜗 𝐿𝑀𝑖 , |𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 | ≤ 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢∗ , |𝛥𝜏 | ≤ 𝛥𝜏 ∗ and 𝑘 ( 𝑖𝑑
− 1)2 ≥ 𝑘𝜔𝑖 . Where
− 𝑟𝑖𝑎 − 𝑖𝑒 𝑖 𝑖 ) − 𝑘𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑢 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 (−𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 (45) ∗ , 𝛥𝜏 ∗ and 𝑘
𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 𝜔𝑖 𝑒𝑖
𝜓𝑖𝑒 𝐿𝑀𝑖 , 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑟 𝜔𝑖 are positive constants. Then:
− 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃ 𝑖 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̂𝑖 + 𝑣̂ 𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 ) + 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃
∑
𝑛
+ 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃̇ 𝑖 ) − 𝑘𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 (−𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 − 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃𝑖 𝑉̇ ≤ {−2ℎ𝑖 𝑉𝑖 + 𝐶𝑖 } (48)
𝑖=1
− (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )(𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖 + 𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ) − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟
+ (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖 ) − 𝑘𝑖3 𝑢2𝑖𝑎 where 𝑉𝑖 = 21 (𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 𝑦2𝑖𝑒 + 𝜓𝑖𝑒2 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑢 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 + 𝑢2𝑖𝑎 + 𝑟2𝑖𝑎 + 𝜔̄ 2𝑖 + 𝑒2𝑖 ), ℎ𝑖 = min
𝑑𝑖𝑢 +𝑚𝑖𝑢 +3𝑚𝑖𝑣 +2 𝑑 +𝑚 +3(𝑚 −𝑚 )+2
𝛥𝜏 𝛥𝜏 {𝑘𝑖1 − 27 , 𝑘𝑖𝑦 − 1, 𝑘𝑖2 − 2, 𝑘𝑖𝑢 − 2𝑚𝑖𝑢
, 𝑘𝑖𝑟 − 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 2𝑚 𝑖𝑣 𝑖𝑢 , 𝑘𝑖3 −
+ 𝑢𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑢 − 𝑘𝑖4 𝑟2𝑖𝑎 + 𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑟 + 𝜔̄ 𝑖 𝜔̄̇ 𝑖 } + 𝑒𝑇 𝜔 1+𝑚𝑖𝑢 1+𝑚 1 ∗ 2 1 ∗ 2
𝑖𝑟
1+𝑚𝑖𝑢 ∗ 2
𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑟 2𝑚𝑖𝑢
, 𝑘𝑖4 − 2𝑚 𝑖𝑟 , 𝑘𝜔𝑖
̄ , 𝑘𝜔𝑖 }, 𝐶𝑖 = 2 (𝑞𝑖𝑢 ) + 2 (𝑞𝑖𝑟 ) + 𝐿𝑀𝑖 + 2𝑚 (𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 ) +
𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑢
1+𝑚𝑖𝑟 7
Substituting Eq. (41) into Eq. (45) and after some algebraic manip-
2𝑚𝑖𝑟
(𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟∗ )2 with the design parameters satisfying 𝑘𝑖1 > 2 , 𝑘𝑖𝑦 > 1,
ulation, 𝑉̇ is rewritten as: 𝑘𝑖2 > 2, 𝑘𝑖𝑢 > 𝑖𝑢 2𝑚
𝑑 +𝑚𝑖𝑢 +3𝑚𝑖𝑣 +2 𝑑 +𝑚 +3(𝑚 −𝑚 )+2
, 𝑘𝑖𝑟 > 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑟 2𝑚 𝑖𝑣 𝑖𝑢 , 𝑘𝑖3 > 2𝑚 𝑖𝑢 ,
1+𝑚
𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑢
∑
𝑛 1+𝑚𝑖𝑟
𝑘𝑖4 > 2𝑚 , 𝑘𝜔𝑖
𝑉̇ = {−𝑘𝑖1 𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 𝑥𝑖𝑒 (𝑞𝑖𝑢 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 − 𝑢̃ 𝑖 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎 ̄ > 0 and 𝑘𝜔𝑖 > 0.
𝑖𝑟
𝑖=1 Solving Eq. (48), we have:
𝜓̃ 𝑖 𝐶𝑖 𝐶
+ 2𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin2 ( ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 )) − 𝑘𝑖𝑦 𝑦2𝑖𝑒 0 ≤ 𝑉𝑖 (𝑡) ≤ + (𝑉𝑖 (0) − 𝑖 )𝐞−2ℎ𝑖 𝑡 (49)
2 2ℎ𝑖 2ℎ𝑖
+ 𝑦𝑖𝑒 (−(𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) + 𝑣̃𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ))) − 𝑘𝑖2 𝜓𝑖𝑒2
We can observe from Eq. (49) that V is uniformly ultimately
+ 𝜓𝑖𝑒 (𝑞𝑖𝑟 + 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 − 𝑟̃𝑖 − 𝑟𝑖𝑎 ) − 𝑘𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑢 bounded. □
+ 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 (−𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 − 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃ 𝑖 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 (𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̂𝑖 + 𝑣̂ 𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 )
(46)
+ 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̃𝑖 𝑟̃𝑖 − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̃ + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̃̇ 𝑖 ) − 𝑘𝑖𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 Theorem 2. For the event-triggered cooperative path following control
system of underactuated USV formation with complex unknowns and actu-
+ 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 (−𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 − 𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃𝑖 − (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )(𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖
ator saturation, the event-triggered conditions indicated in (39) render the
+ 𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ) − 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟 + (𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 + 𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖 ) sampling time intervals of the system to be lower bounded by a nonzero time
𝛥𝜏 𝛥𝜏 𝑡𝑗∗
𝑖 > 0, 𝑗 = 𝑢, 𝑟.
− 𝑘𝑖3 𝑢2𝑖𝑎 + 𝑢𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑢 − 𝑘𝑖4 𝑟2𝑖𝑎 + 𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑟
𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑟
2
𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢∗𝑖𝑑 2 Proof. Motivated by the study presented in Zhang et al. (2020b), we
− 𝑘𝜔𝑖 ̄ 𝜔 ̄ 𝑖 − 𝑘𝜔𝑖 ( − 1)𝑒𝑖 }
𝑒𝑖 derive:
From Young’s inequalities, the following relations are obtained: d d 1
|𝐸 (𝑡𝑢 )| = (𝐸𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 ) × 𝐸𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 )) 2
𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑞𝑖𝑢 ≤ 12 𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 12 𝑞𝑖𝑢 2, 𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑠̂𝑖𝑢 ≤ 12 𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 12 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑢 , −𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢̃ 𝑖 ≤ 12 𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 21 𝑢̃ 2𝑖 , d𝑡 𝑖𝑢 𝑖 d𝑡
1 2 1 2 𝜓̃ = sign(𝐸𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 ))𝐸̇ 𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 ) (50)
𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢𝑖𝑎 ≤ 2 𝑥𝑖𝑒 + 2 𝑢𝑖𝑎 , −2𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑢̃ 𝑖 sin2 ( 2𝑖 ) ≤ 𝑥2𝑖𝑒 + 𝑢̃ 2𝑖 , −𝑥𝑖𝑒 𝑣̃𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) ≤
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 d
2
𝑥 𝑖𝑒 + 2
𝑣
̃ 𝑖 , −𝑦𝑖𝑒 𝑢
̃ 𝑖 sin(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) ≤ 2
𝑦𝑖𝑒 + 2
𝑢
̃ 𝑖 , −𝑦 𝑖𝑒 𝑣
̃ 𝑖 cos(𝜓̃ 𝑖 ) ≤ 2 𝑦𝑖𝑒 + 2 𝑣̃𝑖 , ≤ | Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑖 ))|
𝑢
1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 d𝑡
𝜓𝑖𝑒 𝑞𝑖𝑟 ≤ 2 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 2 𝑞𝑖𝑟 , 𝜓𝑖𝑒 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 ≤ 2 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 2 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 , −𝜓𝑖𝑒 𝑟̃𝑖 ≤ 2 𝜓𝑖𝑒 + 21 𝑟̃2𝑖 ,
1 2
𝑑 𝑑 Taking the time derivative of Eqs. (4) and (37) combined we obtain:
𝜓𝑖𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑎 ≤ 12 𝜓𝑖𝑒2 + 12 𝑟2𝑖𝑎 , −𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 ≤ 12 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 + 12 (𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 )2 , −𝑑𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃𝑖 ≤ 2𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 + 2𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃2𝑖 ,
𝑚 −𝑚 𝑚 −𝑚
−(𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖 ≤ 𝑖𝑣 2 𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 + 𝑖𝑣 2 𝑖𝑢 (𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̂ 𝑖 )2 , −(𝑚𝑖𝑢 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ≤
d
𝑚𝑖𝑣 −𝑚𝑖𝑢 2 𝑚𝑖𝑣 −𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑚 −𝑚 𝑚 −𝑚
𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 + 2 (𝑢̂ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ) , −(𝑚𝑖𝑢 −𝑚𝑖𝑣 )𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 ≤ 𝑖𝑣 2 𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂2𝑖𝑟 + 𝑖𝑣 2 𝑖𝑢 (𝑢̃ 𝑖 𝑣̃𝑖 )2 ,
2 Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 )) = − 𝑘𝑖𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑠̂̇ 𝑖𝑢 + 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̇ 𝑑𝑖𝑡 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̂̇ 𝑖 𝑟̂𝑖
2
𝑚𝑖𝑟 2 𝑚𝑖𝑟 2 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢
d𝑡
1 2 1 2
−𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑢̃ 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟 ≤ 𝑠̂ + 𝑢̃ , −𝑚𝑖𝑟 𝑠̂𝑖𝑟 𝑟̃̇ 𝑖 ≤
2 𝑖𝑟 2 𝑑𝑖̃𝑟
𝑠̂ + 2 𝑖𝑟
𝑟̃̇ , 𝑢𝑖𝑎
2 𝑖 𝑚𝑖𝑢
≤ 1 𝑢2 +
𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑖𝑎 − 𝑚𝑖𝑣 𝑣̂ 𝑖 𝑟̂̇ 𝑖 + 𝑑𝑖𝑢 𝑢̂̇ 𝑖 − 𝑢̂̇ 𝑑𝑖𝑢̂ (51)
1 𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟
𝑚𝑖𝑢
(𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑢 )2 , 𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑚𝑖𝑟
≤ 𝑚1 𝑟2𝑖𝑎 + 1
𝑚𝑖𝑟
(𝛥𝜏𝑖𝑟 )2 . − 𝑘𝑖3 𝑚𝑖𝑢 𝑢̇ 𝑖𝑎 + 𝛥𝜏 ̇ 𝑖𝑢
𝑖𝑟

7
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Fig. 4. Illustration of the cooperative path following performance of a USV formation

Fig. 3. Interaction topology of 5 USVs numbered from 1 to 5 used in the simulations. under time-triggered actuation control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line),
USV3 (dash–dot line), USV4 (thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).

Since all the signals are uniformly ultimately bounded, positive

𝑑
constants 𝜒𝑖𝑢 > 0 exist such as | 𝑑𝑡 Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖 ))| ≤ 𝜒𝑖𝑢 . Based on Eqs. (38)
and (39), the inequality holds from 𝐸𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖𝑘 ) = 0 to lim𝑡𝑢 →𝑡𝑢 𝐸𝑖𝑢 (𝑡𝑢𝑖𝑘 ) =
𝑖 𝑖(𝑘+1)
𝜌𝑖 |Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑖 ))| + 𝜅𝑖 }. The lower bound of the sampling time intervals
𝑢 𝑢 𝑢

𝑖 satisfies 𝑡𝑖 ≥ (𝜌𝑖 |Sat(𝜏𝑖𝑐𝑢 (𝑡𝑖 ))| + 𝜅𝑖 )∕𝜒𝑖 > 0 for all 𝑡𝑖 ∈ [𝑡𝑖𝑘 , 𝑡𝑖(𝑘+1) ),
𝑡𝑢∗ 𝑢∗ 𝑢 𝑢 𝑢 𝑢 𝑢 𝑢 𝑢

and 𝑡𝑟∗ ≥ (𝜌 𝑟 |Sat(𝜏 (𝑡𝑟 ))| + 𝜅 𝑟 )∕𝜒 𝑟 > 0 for all 𝑡𝑟 ∈ [𝑡𝑟 , 𝑡𝑟 ). Therefore,
𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑐𝑟 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖 𝑖𝑘 𝑖(𝑘+1)
the ‘Zeno’ behavior is avoided. □

4. Simulation results

The feasibility and effectiveness of the event-triggered cooperative

path following control strategy proposed here are assessed using nu-
merical simulations of the USV formation with complex unknowns and
actuator saturation using MATLAB/Simulink® . An underactuated USV
with a weight of 23.9 kg (as in Zhou et al., 2020) is used as the object
of USV formation in the numerical simulations. The model parameters
of the USV are 𝑚𝑖𝑢 = 28.135 kg, 𝑚𝑖𝑣 = 45.568 kg, 𝑚𝑖𝑟 = 131.423 kg;
𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 100 kg∕s, 𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 200 kg∕s and 𝑑𝑖𝑟 = 150 kg∕s. The control force and
moment are bounded by 0 ≤ 𝜏𝑖𝑢 ≤ 300 N and |𝜏𝑖𝑟 | ≤ 20 Nm, respectively.
The environmental disturbances and parametric uncertainties of each
USV are assumed to be 𝜏𝑖𝑤𝑢 = 5 sin(0.1𝑡 + 𝜋6 ), 𝜏𝑖𝑤𝑣 = 0.6 sin(0.1𝑡),
𝜏𝑖𝑤𝑟 = 5 sin(0.1𝑡 + 𝜋3 ), 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑢 = 0.1𝑑𝑖𝑢 , 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑣 = 0.1𝑑𝑖𝑣 and 𝛥𝑑𝑖𝑟 = 0.1𝑑𝑖𝑟 . The
tuning parameters of UDE are 𝑇𝑖𝑢 = 5, 𝑇𝑖𝑣 = 4 and 𝑇𝑖𝑟 = 3, and the tuning
parameters of HGO are 𝜖𝑖 = diag(0.1, 0.1, 0.1) and 𝜁1𝑖 = diag(0.5, 0.5, 0.5).
The design parameters of the virtual guidance law are set as 𝑘1𝑖 = 1.3
and 𝑘2𝑖 = 1.5, and the look-ahead distance is 𝛥𝑖 = 5. The parameters of
the tracking differentiators are 𝜇𝑖𝑢 = 5 and 𝜇𝑖𝑟 = 10, and the auxiliary
system parameters are set as 𝑘3𝑖 = 2 and 𝑘4𝑖 = 0.2. The parameters of
the dynamics controller are 𝑘𝑖𝑢 = 0.4 and 𝑘𝑖𝑟 = 1.5. The reference speed
is 𝜈𝑠 = 0.6. The parameters of the cooperative controller are 𝑘𝜔𝑖 = 1
and 𝑘𝜔𝑖̄ = 1.
A formation of USVs with five underactuated USVs numbered 1–5
is used in the numerical simulations. The communication topology of
the USV formation is shown in Fig. 3.
The simulations include time-triggered and event-triggered trans-
mission cases. The total simulation time is 200 s, the time-trigger
interval is 50 ms, and the total number of updates is 4000. The
simulation results are shown in Figs. 4 to 9 for the time-triggered
case and in Figs. 10 to 20, which are analyzed in more detail in
the following paragraphs. We compare the results obtained by both
approaches visually in Fig. 21 and numerically in Table 1.
Fig. 5. Position and heading angle of five USVs under time-triggered actuation control.
USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line), USV4 (thicker
continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).
4.1. Time-triggered simulation (TTS)
The desired paths of the USVs are 𝑥𝑖𝑝 (𝜃𝑖 ) = 10 sin(0.1𝜃𝑖 ) + 𝜃𝑖 + 𝑎𝑖
and 𝑦𝑖𝑝 (𝜃𝑖 ) = 𝜃𝑖 + 𝑏𝑖 . The initial position and yaw angle of the five
USVs are 𝜂1 (0) = [1 m, 2 m, 0 rad]𝑇 , 𝜂2 (0) = [13 m, −8 m, 0 rad]𝑇 ,
𝜂3 (0) = [16 m, 14 m, 0 rad]𝑇 , 𝜂4 (0) = [−4 m, 14 m, 0 rad]𝑇 and 𝜂5 (0) =
[−7 m, −8 m, 0 rad]𝑇 . The initial velocities of the USVs are 𝜈𝑖 (0) =
[0 m∕s, 0 m∕s, 0 rad∕s]𝑇 . The actual paths of the USVs formation are
shown in Fig. 4. The position, heading and velocities of the USVs are
shown in Figs. 5 and 6. As observed in Figs. 4–6, the USVs maintained
their excellent formation performance. Fig. 7 shows that the control
signals of the five USVs were within acceptable ranges of the actuator
saturation constraints. The along tracking errors and cross tracking
errors of the five USVs are shown in Fig. 8, which illustrates that the
path following errors converge smoothly to zero. Fig. 9 is the inter-
event time curve of the control signals; as shown, the update time
interval of the control signals was 0.05 s.
4.2. Event-triggered simulation (ETS)
The parameters of the event-triggered conditions (Eq. (39)) are 𝜌𝑢𝑖 =
2, 𝜅𝑖𝑢 = 0.01 and 𝜌𝑟𝑖 = 0.5, 𝜅𝑖𝑟 = 0.1. The event-triggered cooperative
path following control performance of the USV formation is shown in

8
Y. Huang et al.
Fig. 6. Velocities of five USVs in surge, sway, and yaw directions under time-triggered
actuation control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line),
USV4 (thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).
Fig. 7. Control forces and moments of USV formation under time-triggered actuation
control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line), USV4
(thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).
Fig. 8. Along and cross path following errors of five USVs under time-triggered
actuation control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line),
USV4 (thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).
Fig. 10. Fig. 13 shows that the control signals were within the bounds of
the actuator saturation. The along-tracking and cross-tracking errors of
the five USVs based on the ETM are presented in Fig. 14; as shown, the
path following errors can converge to zero. Figs. 15–19 show the inter-
event time intervals of the control signals of USVs nos.1–5, respectively,
9
Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740
Fig. 9. Inter-event intervals for control signals of USV formation under time-triggered
actuation control. See the legend on the figure.
Fig. 10. Illustration of the cooperative path following performance of USV formation
under event-triggered actuation control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line),
USV3 (dash–dot line), USV4 (thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).
which indicate the advantage of reducing the update frequencies and
reducing the cost for the event-triggered path following controllers. The
trigger times of the event-triggered surge and yaw controllers obtained
for USVs 1 to 5 are (671, 2015); (668, 2024); (666, 2054); (666, 2035);
and (668, 2013) respectively.
4.3. Comparing TTS and ETS
Comparing Figs. 4–6 with Figs. 10–12, we observe that the USVs
exhibit a similar cooperative path following performance. However, by
comparing Figs. 9 and 20, we observe that the update times of the
controllers of the USVs reduced significantly with the event-triggered
strategy. Figs. 8 and 14 show that the path following errors of both
control solutions are stable within ±0.2 m and the tracking performance
of time triggered control scheme slightly superior than the event trig-
gered one. It can be observed from Fig. 21 that the cooperative path
following total errors of USV formation for the event triggered control
scheme slightly greater than the time triggered one. And they are stable
within 0.5. Table 1 shows that the total errors of along, cross and yaw
angle for two cases have little difference in the simulation time of 0–
200 s. They show in detail that the path following performance of USV
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Fig. 11. Positions and heading angle of five USVs under event-triggered actuation
control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line), USV4 Fig. 14. Along and cross path following errors of five USVs under event-triggered
(thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line). actuation control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line),
USV4 (thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).

Fig. 12. Velocities of five USVs in surge, sway, and yaw directions under event-
triggered actuation control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot
line), USV4 (thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).

Fig. 15. Inter-event intervals of no.1 USV control signals under event-triggered
actuation control.

Fig. 13. Control forces and moments of USV formation under event-triggered actuation
control. USV1 (dashed line), USV2 (continuous line), USV3 (dash–dot line), USV4
(thicker continuous line), USV5 (dotted line).

formation in the event-triggered case is similar to the time-triggered

one. Meanwhile, the demand for resources is reduced by more than
3% and the number of controller updates is reduced by more than 45% Fig. 16. Inter-event intervals of no.2 USV control signals under event-triggered
actuation control.
when the event-triggered strategy is used.

10
Y. Huang et al. Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740

Table 1
Summary of the path following performance and resource consumption of the USV formation control under
time-triggered and event-triggered actuation control.
Simulation USV𝑖 (𝑖 = 1) USV𝑖 (𝑖 = 2) USV𝑖 (𝑖 = 3) USV𝑖 (𝑖 = 4) USV𝑖 (𝑖 = 5) Total

200 TTS 7.198 6.250 8.181 8.034 8.498 38.16

∫0 |𝑥𝑖𝑒 |d𝑡
ETS 11.680 9.948 13.87 8.559 10.32 54.38
200 TTS 7.286 7.834 3.645 6.438 12.82 38.02
∫0 |𝑦𝑖𝑒 |d𝑡
ETS 7.326 7.577 3.534 6.170 12.49 37.10
200 TTS 1.899 2.169 1.737 2.059 2.642 10.51
∫0 |𝜓𝑖𝑒 |d𝑡
ETS 1.922 2.138 1.939 2.123 2.716 10.88
200 TTS 20640 20430 19980 20020 20450 101500
∫0 |𝜏𝑖𝑢 | + |𝜏𝑖𝑟 |d𝑡
ETS 20000 19780 19320 19360 19780 98240

Fig. 17. Inter-event intervals of no.3 USV control signals under event-triggered Fig. 19. Inter-event intervals of no.5 USV control signals under event-triggered
actuation control. actuation control.

Fig. 18. Inter-event intervals of no.4 USV control signals under event-triggered
Fig. 20. Inter-event intervals for control signals of the five USVs under event-triggered
actuation control.
actuation control. See the legend on the figure.

5. Conclusion
In this paper, an event-triggered cooperative path following con-
trol scheme for underactuated USV formations, subject to complex
unknowns and actuator saturation, was proposed. It is suitable for
practical application. An HGO and a UDE were employed to esti-
mate the complex unknowns, and only the position and yaw angle
of the USVs are assumed to be measured. An auxiliary system and
ETM were developed to address the effects of actuator saturation and
continuous update of the controllers, respectively. Consequently, the
resource consumption decreased by 3%, and the number of activations
of the actuators decreased by 45% when compared to time-triggered
strategy. The stability of the proposed strategy was demonstrated using
the Lyapunov stability theory. Numerical simulations and comparisons
consolidate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.
During the literature review, we have identified that Extended State

11
Y. Huang et al.
Fig. 21. Comparison of the cooperative path following total errors of USV formation
under time-triggered (dotted line) and event-triggered (continuous line) actuation
control.(𝜂𝑖𝑒 = [𝑥𝑖𝑒 , 𝑦𝑖𝑒 , 𝜓𝑖𝑒 ]𝑇 ).
Observers can be used to identify lumped uncertainties in a system and
estimate unknown states. As a future work, we plan to replace the UDE
and HGO blocks of the current strategy by a ESO block, investigate the
implications in the closed-loop stability, and compare it to the strategy
proposed in this work.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Youqiang Huang: Writing – original draft, Writing – review &
editing, Visualization. Defeng Wu: Writing – original draft, Writing
– review & editing, Methodology, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Lingyu Li: Visualization. Na Feng: Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the comments raised by the reviewers
which helped significantly improve the quality of the paper. The au-
thors are grateful for the financial support provided by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (52171309, 51809113), Natural
Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2020J01689), Fujian Provincial
Young Top-Notch Talent Plan (Z02101), and the Project of Intelligent
Situation Awareness System for Smart Ship (MC-201920-X01). The
authors are also grateful for the grammar review provided by Dr. Andre
S. Yamashita from Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.
References
Arrichiello, F., Chiaverini, S., Fossen, T.I., 2006. Formation control of underactuated
surface vessels using the null-space-based behavioral control. In: 2006 IEEE/RSJ
International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. pp. 5942–5947.
Behtash, S., 1990. Robust output tracking for nonlinear systems. Int. J. Control 51 (6),
1381–1470.
Dai, S.-L., He, S., Cai, H., Yang, C., 2022. Adaptive leader-follower formation control
of underactuated surface vehicles with guaranteed performance. IEEE Trans. Syst.
Man Cybern. Syst. 52 (3), 1997–2008.
Fossen, T.I., 2011. Handbook of Marine Craft Hydrodynamics and Motion Control. John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd..
Gu, N., Peng, Z., Wang, D., Shi, Y., Wang, T., 2019a. Antidisturbance coordinated path
following control of robotic autonomous surface vehicles: Theory and experiment.
IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics 24 (5), 2386–2396.
12
Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740
Gu, N., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Li, T., Tong, S., 2021. Model-free containment control of
underactuated surface vessels under switching topologies based on guiding vector
fields and data-driven neural predictors. IEEE Trans. Cybern. http://dx.doi.org/10.
1109/TCYB.2021.3061588.
Gu, N., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Liu, L., 2019b. Distributed containment maneuvering of
uncertain underactuated unmanned surface vehicles guided by multiple virtual
leaders with a formation. Ocean Eng. 187, 105996.
Gu, N., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Liu, L., 2020. Adaptive bounded neural network control
for coordinated path-following of networked underactuated autonomous surface
vehicles under time-varying state-dependent cyber-attack. ISA Trans. 104, 212–221.
Guo, B., Zhao, Z., 2011. On convergence of tracking differentiator. Int. J. Control 84
(4), 693–701.
Huang, Y., Wu, D., Yin, Z., Yuan, Z.-M., 2021a. Design of UDE-based dynamic surface
control for dynamic positioning of vessels with complex disturbances and input
constraints. Ocean Eng. 220, 108487.
Huang, C., Zhang, X., Zhang, G., 2021b. Decentralized event-triggered cooperative path-
following control for multiple autonomous surface vessels under actuator failures.
Appl. Ocean Res. 113, 102751.
Huang, C., Zhang, X., Zhang, G., Deng, Y., 2021c. Robust practical fixed-time leader-
follower formation control for underactuated autonomous surface vessels using
event-triggered mechanism. Ocean Eng. 233, 109026.
Li, M., Guo, C., Yu, H., 2021. Global finite-time control for coordinated path following
of multiple underactuated unmanned surface vehicles along one curve under
directed topologies. Ocean Eng. 237, 109608.
Liang, X., Qu, X., Hou, Y., Li, Y., Zhang, R., 2021a. Finite-time unknown observer based
coordinated path-following control of unmanned underwater vehicles. J. Franklin
Inst. 358, 2703–2721.
Liang, X., Qu, X., Wang, N., Li, Y., 2021b. Swarm velocity guidance based distributed
finite-time coordinated path-following for uncertain underactuated autonomous
surface vehicles. ISA Trans. 112, 271–280.
Liu, H., Chen, G., Tian, X., 2020b. Cooperative formation control for multiple surface
vessels based on barrier Lyapunov function and self-structuring neural networks.
Ocean Eng. 216, 108163.
Liu, L., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Han, Q.-L., 2021. Distributed path following of multiple
underactuated autonomous surface vehicles based on data-driven neural predictors
via integral concurrent learning. IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst. 32 (12),
5334–5344.
Liu, L., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Li, T., 2017a. Modular adaptive control for LOS-based
cooperative path maneuvering of multiple underactuated autonomous surface
vehicles. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Syst. 47 (7), 1613–1624.
Liu, L., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Li, T., 2020c. Cooperative path following ring-networked
underactuated autonomous surface vehicles: Algorithms and experimental results.
IEEE Trans. Cybern. 50 (4), 1519–1529.
Liu, L., Wang, D., Peng, Z., Liu, H.H.T., 2017b. Saturated coordinated control of
multiple underactuated unmanned surface vehicles over a closed curve. Sci. China
Inf. Sci. 60 (7), 070203.
Liu, B., Zhang, H.-T., Meng, H., Fu, D., Su, H., 2020a. Scanning-chain formation control
for multiple unmanned surface vessels to pass through water channels. IEEE Trans.
Cybern. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TCYB.2020.2997833.
Peng, Z., Liu, L., Wang, J., 2021a. Output-feedback flocking control of multiple au-
tonomous surface vehicles based on data-driven adaptive extended state observers.
IEEE Trans. Cybern. 51 (9), 4611–4622.
Peng, Z., Wang, D., Li, T., Han, M., 2020. Output-feedback cooperative formation
maneuvering of autonomous surface vehicles with connectivity preservation and
collision avoidance. IEEE Trans. Cybern. 50 (6), 2527–2535.
Peng, Z., Wang, J., Wang, D., 2017a. Containment maneuvering of marine surface vehi-
cles with multiple parameterized paths via spatial-temporal decoupling. IEEE/ASME
Trans. Mechatronics 22 (2), 1029–1036.
Peng, Z., Wang, J., Wang, D., 2017b. Distributed containment maneuvering of multiple
marine vessels via neurodynamics-based output feedback. IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.
64 (5), 3831–3839.
Peng, Z., Wang, J., Wang, D., Han, Q.-L., 2021b. An overview of recent advances in
coordinated control of multiple autonomous surface vehicles. IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf.
17 (2), 732–745.
Qu, X., Liang, X., Hou, Y., 2021. Fuzzy state observer-based cooperative path-following
control of autonomous underwater vehicles with unknown dynamics and ocean
disturbances. Int. J. Fuzzy Syst. 23 (6), 1849–1859.
Qu, X., Liang, X., Hou, Y., Li, Y., Zhang, R., 2020. Finite-time sideslip observer-based
synchronized path-following control of multiple unmanned underwater vehicles.
Ocean Eng. 217, 107941.
Ren, B., Zhong, Q.-C., Dai, J., 2017. Asymptotic reference tracking and distur-
bance rejection of UDE-based robust control. IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron. 64 (4),
3166–3176.
Skjetne, R., Moi, S., Fossen, T.I., 2002. Nonlinear formation control of marine craft. In:
Proceedings of the 41st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. pp. 1699–1704.
Wang, H., Liu, K., Li, S., 2018. Command filter based globally stable adaptive neural
control for cooperative path following of multiple underactuated autonomous un-
derwater vehicles with partial knowledge of the reference speed. Neurocomputing
275, 1478–1489.
Y. Huang et al.
Wang, H., Wang, D., Peng, Z., 2014. Neural network based adaptive dynamic surface
control for cooperative path following of marine surface vehicles via state and
output feedback. Neurocomputing 133, 170–178.
Wu, D., Ren, F., Qiao, L., Zhang, W., 2018. Active disturbance rejection con-
troller design for dynamically positioned vessels based on adaptive hybrid
biogeography-based optimization and differential evolution. ISA Trans. 78, 56–65.
Zhang, G., Huang, C., Li, J., Zhang, X., 2020a. Constrained coordinated path-following
control for underactuated surface vessels with the disturbance rejection mechanism.
Ocean Eng. 196, 106725.
13
Ocean Engineering 249 (2022) 110740
Zhang, Y., Sun, J., Liang, H., Li, H., 2020b. Event-triggered adaptive tracking control
for multiagent systems with unknown disturbances. IEEE Trans. Cybern. 50 (3),
890–901.
Zhang, Y., Wang, D., Yin, Y., Peng, Z., 2021. Event-triggered distributed coordinated
control of networked autonomous surface vehicles subject to fully unknown kinetics
via concurrent-learning-based neural predictor. Ocean Eng. 234, 108966.
Zhou, W., Wang, Y., Ahn, C.K., Chen, C., 2020. Adaptive fuzzy backstepping-based
formation control of unmanned surface vehicles with unknown model nonlinearity
and actuator saturation. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol. 69 (12), 14749–14764.