<i>k-Connected</i> Hierarchical Topology Self-Organization Control for Networked Marine Surface Vehicles

With the scale of networked marine surface vehicles (NMSVs) increasing, position scheduling for achieving formation connectivity becomes more challenging, particularly in large and obstacle-laden areas. However, existing works usually assume the formation isconnectedinitially. Against this backdrop, we propose ak-connectedhierarchical topology self-organization control scheme, steering NMSVs to establish a fault-tolerant collision-free network. Ak-connectedhierarchical network construction (KHNC) is developed to regulate the priorities of members. Then, ak-connectedhierarchical topology formation algorithm (KHTFA) is presented to collision-free aggregates spatially dispersed NMSVs. Meanwhile, a hierarchy-aware performance indicator function is developed to sustaink-connectivityduring collaborative maneuvers. By these designs, a collision-free cooperative optimal control scheme is proposed to achieve two objectives: 1) self-organizedk-connectivityattainment in initially disconnected NMSVs and 2) collision-free formation maneuvers with sustained k-connectivity. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is confirmed by theoretical analysis and semi-physical simulation results.