Fixed-time Fault-tolerant Formation Control for Unmanned Surface Vehicles with Actuator Faults

A fixed-time fault-tolerant formation control method is proposed to achieve rapid formation convergence for multiple unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in the presence of actuator faults and unknown environmental disturbances. Firstly, a fixed-time disturbance observer (FxDO) is designed to estimate and compensate for unknown environmental disturbances and actuator faults. Secondly, a fixed-time convergent estimator is proposed to observe the time-varying sideslip angle. Finally, a fixed-time sliding mode controller (FxSMC) is presented to ensure the fixed-time convergence for the error of the kinematic. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is validated through comparative simulation results of three USVs.