Trajectory Tracking Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle With Unknown Parameters and External Disturbances

Abstract

Most studies so far on trajectory tracking control of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) have assumed that the Euler angles are exactly known. However, the AUV inevitably suffers from external environmental disturbances which are driven by wind, density, and temperature gradients. The attitude transducers cannot derive accurate attitude information of the AUV. Additionally, the uncertain hydrodynamic parameters affect the stability of the system. Consequently, it is unknown whether tracking performance of the AUV can be guaranteed. In order to overcome these drawbacks, in this paper, a finite-time controller is developed by using the nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control technique. A robust differentiator is proposed to estimate the external disturbances and uncertain parts. Simulations are performed to show that with the proposed control laws, the AUV converges to the desired trajectory even in the presence of external disturbances and system uncertainty.