The control system designing of unmanned wave glider(UWG) is challenging since the control system is weak maneuvering, large time-lag and large disturbance, which is difficult to establish accurate mathematical model. The control system for the "Ocean Rambler" UWG is studied in this work. A heading control method based on S-surface controller is designed. For the "rudder zero drift" problem in trials, an improved S-surface control method based on rudder angle compensation is proposed, which can compensate the adverse effects from environmental forces and installation error. The tank test and sea trial results prove that the proposed control method has favorable control performance, and the feasibility and reliability of the designed control system are also verified.
The trajectory tracking control problem for underactuated unmanned surface vehicles(USV) was addressed, and the control system took account of the uncertain influences induced by model perturbation, external disturbance, etc. By introducing the reference, trajectory was generated by a virtual USV, and the error equation of trajectory tracking for USV was obtained, which transformed the tracking problem of underactuated USV into the stabilization problem of the trajectory tracking error equation. A backstepping adaptive sliding mode controller was proposed based on backstepping technology and method of dynamic slide model control. By means of theoretical analysis, it is proved that the proposed controller ensures that the solutions of closed loop system have the ultimate boundedness property. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.
The trajectory planning and tracking control for an underactuated unmanned surface vessel(USV) were addressed.The reference trajectory was generated by a virtual USV,and the error equation of trajectory tracking for underactuated USV was obtained,which transformed the tracking and stabilization problem of underactuated USV into the stabilization problem of the trajectory tracking error equation.A nonlinear state feedback controller was proposed based on backstepping technique and Lyapunov's direct method.By means of Lyapunov analysis,it is proved that the proposed controller ensures that the solutions of closed loop system have the ultimate boundedness property.Numerical simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed controller.