  Advancements in underwater vehicle technology have significantly expanded the
potential scope for deploying autonomous or remotely operated underwater
vehicles in novel practical applications. However, the efficiency and
maneuverability of these vehicles remain critical challenges, particularly in
the dynamic aquatic environment. In this work, we propose a novel control
scheme for creating multi-agent distributed formation control with limited
communication between individual agents. In addition, the formation of the
multi-agent can be reconfigured in real-time and the network connectivity can
be maintained. The proposed use case for this scheme includes creating
underwater mobile communication networks that can adapt to environmental or
network conditions to maintain the quality of communication links for
long-range exploration, seabed monitoring, or underwater infrastructure
inspection. This work introduces a novel Distributed Nonlinear Model Predictive
Control (DNMPC) strategy, integrating Control Lyapunov Functions (CLF) and
Control Barrier Functions (CBF) with a relaxed decay rate, specifically
tailored for 6-DOF underwater robotics. The effectiveness of our proposed DNMPC
scheme was demonstrated through rigorous MATLAB simulations for trajectory
tracking and formation reconfiguration in a dynamic environment. Our findings,
supported by tests conducted using Software In The Loop (SITL) simulation,
confirm the approach's applicability in real-time scenarios.
