Distributed Optimization of Multi-USV Systems for Marine Environmental Monitoring

This paper investigates the optimal deployment strategies of multi-unmanned surface vehicle (USV) systems for marine environmental monitoring. To accomplish the collaborative monitoring tasks, multi-USV systems are required to preserve relative position offsets to the monitoring center while maintaining their geometric centroid at the predefined monitoring center. Meanwhile, each USV system seeks its desired monitoring position, determined by the current operational status and local environmental factors. In this context, an optimal deployment problem is formulated through synthesizing collective monitoring objectives with individual requirements. To address this issue, a novel fully distributed optimization algorithm applicable to digraphs is proposed, which incorporates several key techniques including adaptive gain designs, variable substitution and leader-following gradient estimation. It is rigorously demonstrated that the developed algorithm asymptotically converges to the optimal solution under mild assumptions through Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.