Affine formation maneuvering control for full-state error constrained and actuator saturation of multiple stratospheric airships

The affine formation control problem considering full-state error constrained, actuator saturation, and unknown disturbances of multiple stratospheric airships is investigated in this paper. To achieve the objective of formation reconfiguration without global knowledge, the affine transformation is used to generate the desired configuration. In particular, by establishing the algebraic relationship between the stress state and formation error, the desired attitude configuration of an airship satisfying zero-sideslip flight conditions is derived. Based on the backstepping method, an affine formation control algorithm ensuring that both the position and attitude of the airships are restricted by formation error constraints is proposed. Barrier Lyapunov functions are employed to satisfy the full-state error constraint requirement in each design step. Besides, the auxiliary system is designed to compensate for actuator saturation. Adaptive laws are developed to handle the unknown terms which are composed of unknown external disturbances and unmodeled dynamics. Finally, the numerical simulations are conducted to provide evidence for the efficacy and superiority of the affine formation control algorithm proposed in this paper.