Abstract: To resolve the issue of consistency when unmanned surface vessel(USV) group operate collaboratively in hydrographic survey,in this paper adopting the method of cooperative and control based on consistency theory, controlling multi-USV collaborative operation is studied, which has been applied in multi-USV cooperative survey.According to different survey tasks, a distributed consistency controller is designed to meet the requirements.The self-organized network survey system is modeled, model matrix and characteristic equation areconstructedfor the whole formation network. By analyzing the characteristic roots of the model matrix, the key information of the entire formation network is obtained, and time constraint is added. By solving the corresponding feasible solution, the consistent formation control algorithm is applied, combined with the key information of the formation network. Finally, the self-organized network formation achieves the consistency of the target and state quickly in a limited time.At the meantime, collision avoidance mechanism is added, so that multi-USV do not collide with each other at a safe distance. It has certain guidance and practical significance in the control of unmanned platform to operate collaboratively.

Key words: unmanned surface vessel group, consistency theory, collaborative operation, networking formation, hydrographic survey