A Novel Disturbance Estimation Scheme for Formation Control of Ocean Surface Vessels

To achieve high-accuracy formation control of multiple ocean surface vessels, the external disturbance acting on each vessel should be accommodated. In this paper, a novel disturbance estimation scheme is presented to solve this problem, and to provide the future formation controller design with precise estimation information. This approach is developed in the theoretical framework of a terminal sliding mode observer. The proposed observer is able to precisely estimate external disturbance after finite time. It is shown by Lyapunov stability analysis that the estimation error for external disturbance will converge to zero after finite time. A fast and precise estimation for external disturbance is achieved. Numerical example is further presented to validate the effectiveness of the developed disturbance estimation approach.