Objectives To improve the ability of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) formations to perform tasks in complex obstacle scenarios, a distributed three-dimensional affine formation shape maneuver control method is proposed for multi-AUV formations.

Methods Based on the affine transformation theory and stress matrix, AUV formation shape can achieve rotation, scaling, shear, coplanarity, collineation, or their combination. Formation maneuver information is only determined by the leader AUVs, and the follower AUVs only need to track their individual desired trajectory affinely localized by the leader AUVs. Meanwhile, the yaw consistency of the multi-AUV formation is achieved based on the Laplacian matrix. Furthermore, a non-singular integral terminal sliding mode controller is employed to ensure that the multi-AUV formation can track the desired trajectory fast and with high accuracy.

Results Through high-fidelity simulation experiments, the proposed AUV formation maneuver control method can drive the multi-AUV formation to realize the high-precision maneuvering transformation of a three-dimensional formation with high maneuverability and strong robustness.

Conclusions The proposed method enables the multi-AUV formation to avoid complex underwater obstacles by flexible maneuvering formation, which improves the safety of the AUV formation and its ability to perform tasks.