In this paper, a novel dynamic surface sliding mode control (DSSMC) method, combined with a lateral velocity tracking differentiator (LVTD), is proposed for the cooperative formation control of underactuated unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) exposed to complex marine environment disturbances. Firstly, in view of the kinematic and dynamic models of USVs and the design idea of a virtual control law in a backstepping approach, the trajectory tracking control problem of USVs’ cooperative formation is transformed into a stabilisation problem of the virtual control law of longitudinal and lateral velocities. Then, aiming at the problem of differential explosion caused by repeated derivation in the process of backstepping design, the first-order low-pass filter about the virtual longitudinal velocity and intermediate state quantity of position is constructed to replace differential calculations during the design of the control law, respectively. In order to reduce the steady-state error when stabilising the virtual lateral velocity control law, the integral term is introduced into the design of the sliding mode surface with a lateral velocity error, and then the second-order sliding mode surface with an integral is structured. In addition, due to the problem of controller oscillation and the role of the tracking differentiator (TD) in active disturbance rejection control (ADRC), the LVTD is designed to smooth the state quantity of lateral velocity. Subsequently, based on the dynamic model of USV under complex marine environment disturbances, the nonlinear disturbance observer is designed to observe the disturbances and compensate the control law. Finally, the whole cooperative formation system is proved to be uniformly and ultimately bounded, according to the Lyapunov stability theory, and the stability and validity of the method is also verified by the simulation results.

In this paper, a bio-inspired sliding mode control (bio-SMC) and minimal learning parameter (MLP) are proposed to achieve the cooperative formation control of underactuated unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) with external environmental disturbances and model uncertainties. Firstly, the desired trajectory of the follower USV is generated by the leader USV’s position information based on the leader–follower framework, and the problem of cooperative formation control is transformed into a trajectory tracking error stabilization problem. Besides, the USV position errors are stabilized by a backstepping approach, then the virtual longitudinal and virtual lateral velocities can be designed. To alleviate the system oscillation and reduce the computational complexity of the controller, a sliding mode control with a bio-inspired model is designed to avoid the problem of differential explosion caused by repeated derivation. A radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is adopted for estimating and compensating for the environmental disturbances and model uncertainties, where the MLP algorithm is utilized to substitute for online weight learning in a single-parameter form. Finally, the proposed method is proved to be uniformly and ultimately bounded through the Lyapunov stability theory, and the validity of the method is also verified by simulation experiments.

The marine environment is complex and variable, with the absorption and scattering effects of seawater and turbulence causing significant attenuation of received optical signals and introducing random jitter, which limits the communication range and stability of underwater wireless optical communication systems. This paper presents the Superposition UEP-Spinal Code structure, which utilizes unequal error protection (UEP) to adjust the transmission performance of different types of information in underwater composite data communication by adjusting the superposition weighting factors in the encoding algorithm. This encoding method enhances the noise immunity of important data, and with the same bandwidth utilization, the overall decoding complexity is reduced by 13.3% compared to the previously improved Spinal code encoding algorithm. The results show that the Superposition UEP-Spinal Code provides a more stable, reliable, and efficient communication solution for underwater wireless optical communication systems with randomly varying channel conditions.

This study addresses the issue of vortex current fields near the islands and reefs in China’s straits, which pose significant challenges to engineering construction and navigation safety in the surrounding waters. To monitor these vortex fields, the study proposes an innovative method utilizing acoustic signals. The study utilizes the numerical simulation and phase feature extraction of acoustic signals in the vortex current field, based on ray acoustic theory and time-reversal mirror technology. The study successfully monitored the central position of the vortex core and characteristic radius of the vortex current field near Barley Straw Reef using HYCOM data for the first time. Furthermore, the performance of the method was analyzed under different acoustic phase perturbations and signal-to-noise ratios. The numerical simulation results demonstrate that the acoustic method is effective in monitoring near-shore vortex fields, and the time-reversal mirror technique is useful in extracting phase difference information from acoustic signals generated by vortex currents.

Ships navigating in channels with vortex fields face increased risks. However, these vortex fields can be monitored using acoustic methods. The key is to extract the phase characteristics of sound signals passing through the vortices. Using time-reversal mirrors, this paper studied the extraction method of characteristics both numerically and experimentally, aiming to verify the effectiveness of the numerical simulation method. Starting from this point, the impact of different movement forms and scale changes in vortex fields on the acoustic signal extraction method was further investigated. The results indicate that with the iterations of time reversal (N < 6), the method is effective for uniformly moving vortex fields, when the vortex center moving speed $V_w$ < 2.2 × 10⁻³ m/s and the radius diffusion speed $V_r$ < 2.5 × 10⁻³ m/s. On the other hand, for oscillating vortex fields, it is effective when the oscillation amplitude $L_D$ < 0.15 m and the radius diffusion speed $V_r$ < 2.4 × 10⁻³ m/s; meanwhile, the dynamic characteristics of the vortex field can be ignored by the phase extraction method based on time-reversal mirrors.

In this study, ultrasonic sensors were used to measure the vertical vortex at flood discharge outlets in real time, and numerical simulations and model experiments were conducted. When a sound signal passes through a vortex, its propagation characteristics will change, which helps to determine the existence of the vortex. Moreover, its characteristic parameters can be obtained through inversion. In this paper, first, the theories of acoustic measurement methods were introduced and their feasibility was verified through a comparison between Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurement and numerical simulation results. Then, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method was used to simulate the vertical vortex at the flood discharge outlets of hydraulic structures and the simulation data were restored to the actual size at scale. Finally, acoustic numerical simulations of actual vortex data were conducted, and ultrasonic sensors were used to measure the velocity of a simplified vertical vortex model under laboratory conditions. The research results indicate that the acoustic measurement method proposed in this article is effective in the measurement of the characteristic parameters of vertical vortex with a core radius of 0.03~0.05 m and a maximum tangential velocity of 0.5 m/s, the measurement error of the maximum tangential velocity is within 10%.