Formation control by synchronizing multiple maneuvering systems

This paper investigates formation control of a fleet of vessels with a small amount of intervessel communication. The control objective for each vessel is to maintain its position in the formation. This is obtained by constructing individual parametrized paths for each vessel so that when the parametrization variables are synchronized, the vessels are in formation. Then, vectorial backstepping is used to solve an individual maneuvering problem for each vessel with the extension of a synchronization term in the resulting dynamic controllers to ensure that the vessels keep assembled in the desired formation.