Output feedback adaptive optimal control of multiple unmanned marine vehicles with unknown external disturbance

This paper presents an optimal output-feedback tracking control problem for multiple unmanned marine vehicles (UMVs) to track a desired trajectory. To guarantee the control objective in an optimal manner, adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) with optimal compensation terms is adopted. A neural velocity observer is designed based on a neural network (NN) to estimate the unmeasured system states and the unknown system dynamics. Furthermore, a disturbance observer (DO) is proposed to go against the effect of the unknown external disturbance of the sea environment. It is proved that the proposed controller can guarantee that all signals in the closed-loop system are bounded. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.