Fixed-time control for distributed time-varying formation of autonomous surface vehicles with prescribed performance

Autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), operating in dynamic and complex marine environments, often need to reconfigure their formations to meet diverse mission requirements. This paper introduces a distributed fixed-time prescribed performance control strategy that addresses the challenges of time-varying formation control for multiple ASV system. First, a new augmented fixed-time observer is proposed to estimate fault and disturbance while filtering out measurement noise. A sliding-mode control scheme based on a distributed estimator is then developed. Specifically, a distributed estimator is designed to estimate the virtual leader’s state, and a fixed-time second-order integral sliding surface based on bi-limit homogeneity is introduced. Finally, the simulation is conducted on six networked Cyber-Ships to ensure that the proposed method is valid.