Backstepping control design for motion coordination of self-propelled vehicles in a flowfield

Motion coordination of autonomous vehicles has applications from target surveillance to climate monitoring. Previous research has yielded stabilizing control laws for a self-propelled vehicle model with first-order rotational dynamics, but this model does not adequately describe the rotational dynamics of vehicles in the atmosphere or ocean. This paper describes the design of backstepping algorithms for the decentralized control of self-propelled vehicles with second-order rotational dynamics. We design backstepping controls for parallel and circular formations in the absence of a flowfield and in the presence of a steady, uniform flowfield. These controls extend prior results to a more realistic vehicle model. Aside from the addition of new sensing and communication requirements, the second-order control laws are demonstrated to have comparable performance to the first-order controllers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.