Coordination control for multiple unmanned surface vehicles using hybrid behavior-based method

Abstract Deployment of multiple unmanned agent systems to perform missions in a collaborative manner has become a research hotspot in recent years, and the same is true for multiple unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). Therefore, this present paper mainly focuses on the coordination control for multiple USVs in the dynamic maritime environment. Approach used in this paper is principally the behavior-based method, which is useful to guide the unmanned agent system in an unknown or dynamically changing environment. The hybrid behavior-based (HB) method, combining the null-space-based behavioral (NSB) approach and behaviors complied with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs), is proposed to achieve the coordination control of multiple USVs. Using the HB method, all aspects of the coordination control problem, including the rendezvous issue, formation keeping and collision avoidance of both static and dynamic obstacles, can be accomplished at the same time. Furthermore, the Kalman filter (KF) algorithm is incorporated into the proposed HB method to compensation for navigation information of other traffic ships in the dynamic environment. So that a more practical coordination control for multiple USVs in the realistic applications can be achieved. Through the verification by numerical simulations, the proposed HB method can effectively achieve the coordination control for multiple USVs in the dynamic environment.