Trajectory Tracking and Path Following for Underactuated Marine Vehicles

• Published in: IEEE transactions on control systems technology Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 1423 - 1437
• Main Authors: Paliotta, Claudio, Lefeber, Erjen, Pettersen, Kristin Ytterstad, Pinto, Jose, Costa, Maria, de Figueiredo Borges de Sousa, Joao Tasso
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-07-2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Autonomous underwater vehicles; Autonomous vehicles; Damping; Feedback control; Feedback linearization; Marine vehicles; nonlinear dynamical systems; Ocean currents; Oceans; Output feedback; stability analysis; Strategy; Surface vehicles; Task analysis; Tracking control; Trajectory control; Trajectory planning; Trajectory tracking; unmanned underwater vehicles; Vehicle dynamics; Vehicles
• ISSN: 1063-6536; 1558-0865
• DOI: 10.1109/TCST.2018.2834518

In this paper, we present a control strategy for trajectory tracking and path following of generic paths for underactuated marine vehicles. Our work is inspired and motivated by previous works on ground vehicles. In particular, we extend the definition of the hand position point, introduced for ground vehicles, to autonomous surface vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles, and then use the hand position point as output for a control strategy based on the input-output feedback linearization method. The presented strategy is able to deal with external disturbances affecting the vehicle, e.g., constant and irrotational ocean currents. Using the Lyapunov analysis, we are able to prove that the closed-loop system has an external dynamics that is globally exponentially stable and an internal dynamics that has ultimately bounded states, both for the trajectory tracking and the path following control problems. Finally, we present a simulation case study and experimental results in order to validate the theoretical results.