Fault-Tolerant Formation of Interlinked Marine Surface Vehicles Based on Fixed-Time Distributed Optimization

This paper presents a novel nonsingular fixed-time distributed optimal formation control strategy for interlinked marine surface vehicles (IMSVs) subject to actuator faults and failures. A cyber-physical framework is constructed to handle such problems. Firstly, a fixed-time distributed optimization estimator in the cyber layer is designed to derives the optimal solution based on the local objective functions through consensus-based algorithms. Secondly, a fixed-time robust tracking controller is constructed in the physical layer with the estimated optimal solution being the reference signal. The overall controller combines fixed-time stability theory and distributed optimization techniques, enabling each vehicle to achieve optimal formation positioning based on local interactions and global formation requirements. Furthermore, a fault-tolerant mechanism is embedded to maintain performance under partial actuator degradation. Lyapunov analysis rigorously proves the fixed-time stability of the closed-loop system, and simulation results validate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.