Objectives  This paper addresses the anti-disturbance optimal coverage control of under-actuated autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) in fixed ocean areas.

  Methods  At the kinematic level, the Voronoi tessellation is carried out based on the locations of adjacent ASVs and environmental density information, and guidance laws for under-actuated ASVs are designed to guide each ASV to the optimal target point. Next, considering model uncertainties and external disturbances due to wind, waves and ocean currents, at the kinetic level, a fixed-time extended state observer (FTESO) is developed and a fixed-time kinetic control law is designed on the basis of the FTESO.

  Results  Stability analysis shows that the error of the closed-loop anti-disturbance optimal coverage control system is bounded, and simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

  Conclusions  By using the proposed coverage controller, ASVs are able to achieve the optimal coverage of the target area from any initial position.