KFESO based composite anti-disturbance control for distributed coordinated path following of unmanned surface vehicles

Abstract：Objectives Aiming at the problem that the USV cannot get the state information accurately and the path tracking precision is low because of the high and low frequency mixed multi-source disturbance, a composite disturbance rejection control method based on extended state observer combined with Kalman filter for multiple USVs distributed formation path following is proposed. Methods Firstly, KFESO is constructed by combining Kalman filter to estimate USV states and lumped disturbances. Secondly, a distributed state observer was designed to observe the speed information of the virtual leader, and a kinematic cooperative controller is designed based on the consistency theory and line-of-sight guiding law according to the estimated reference speed and the position and speed of the KFESO output. On this basis, a dynamic disturbance rejection controller is designed by using backstepping method and dynamic surface control technique. Then, Lyapunov stability theory is used to prove that all error signals in the control system are uniformly ultimately bounded. Results Simulation results show that the proposed control method can accurately obtain states of USV, and still has good tracking accuracy and anti-disturbance ability under the mixed multi-source disturbance of high and low frequency. Conclusions The method can alleviate the contradiction between estimation speed and accuracy in ESO, and improve the accuracy of coordinated path following.