Depth-trim mapping control of underwater vehicle with fins

Underwater vehicle plays an important role in ocean engineering.Depth control by fin is one of the difficulties for underwater vehicle in motion control.Depth control is indirect due to the freedom coupling between trim and axial motion.It includes the method of dynamic analysis and lift-resistance-coefficient experiment and theory algorithm.By considering the current speed and depth deviation,comprehensive interpretation is used in object-planning instruction.Expected depth is transformed into expected trim.Dynamic output fluctuation can be avoided,which is caused by linear mapping of deviation.It is steady and accurate for the motion of controlled underwater vehicles.The feasibility and efficiency of the control method are testified in the pool and natural area for experiments.     

Adaptive sliding mode control of autonomous underwater vehicles inthe dive plane

The problem of controlling an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in a diving maneuver is addressed. Having a simple controller which performs satisfactorily in the presence of dynamical uncertainties calls for a design using the sliding mode approach, based on a dominant linear model and bounds on the nonlinear perturbations of the dynamics. Nonadaptive and adaptive techniques are considered, leading to the design of robust controllers that can adjust to changing dynamics and operating conditions. The problem of using the observed state in the control design is addressed, leading to a sliding mode control system based on input-output signals in terms of drive-phase command and depth measurement. Numerical simulations using a full set of nonlinear equations of motion show the effectiveness of the proposed techniques     

Nonlinear adaptive control of an underwater towed vehicle

This paper addresses the problem of simultaneous depth tracking and attitude control of an underwater towed vehicle. The system proposed uses a two-stage towing arrangement that includes a long primary cable, a gravitic depressor, and a secondary cable. The towfish motion induced by wave driven disturbances in both the vertical and horizontal planes is described using an empirical model of the depressor motion and a spring-damper model of the secondary cable. A nonlinear, Lyapunov-based, adaptive output feedback control law is designed and shown to regulate pitch, yaw, and depth tracking errors to zero. The controller is designed to operate in the presence of plant parameter uncertainty. When subjected to bounded external disturbances, the tracking errors converge to a neighbourhood of the origin that can be made arbitrarily small. In the implementation proposed, a nonlinear observer is used to estimate the linear velocities used by the controller thus dispensing with the need for costly sensor suites. The results obtained with computer simulations show that the controlled system exhibits good performance about different operating conditions when subjected to sea-wave driven disturbances and in the presence of sensor noise. The system holds promise for application in oceanographic missions that require depth tracking or bottom-following combined with precise vehicle attitude control.     

Adaptive input–output feedback linearizing yaw plane control of BAUV using dorsal fins

This paper presents the design of an adaptive input–output feedback linearizing dorsal fin control system for the yaw plane control of low-speed bio-robotic autonomous underwater vehicles (BAUVs). The control forces are generated by cambering two dorsal fins mounted in the vertical plane on either side of the vehicle. The BAUV model includes nonlinear hydrodynamics, and it is assumed that its hydrodynamic coefficients as well as the physical parameters are not known. For the purpose of design, a linear combination of the yaw angle tracking error and its derivative and integral is chosen as the controlled output variable. An adaptive input–output feedback linearizing control law is derived for the trajectory control of the yaw angle. Unlike indirect adaptive control, here the controller gains are directly tuned. The stability of the zero dynamics is examined. Simulation results are presented for tracking exponential and sinusoidal yaw angle trajectories and for turning maneuvers, and it is shown that the adaptive control system accomplishes precise yaw angle control of the BAUV using dorsal fins in spite of the nonlinearity and large uncertainties in the system parameters.     

Robust control based on feedback linearization for roll stabilizing of autonomous underwater vehicle under wave disturbances

In the case of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle(AUV) navigating with low speed near water surface,a new method for design of roll motion controller is proposed in order to restrain wave disturbance effectively and improve roll stabilizing performance.Robust control is applied,which is based on uncertain nonlinear horizontal motion model of AUV and the principle of zero speed fin stabilizer.Feedback linearization approach is used to transform the complex nonlinear system into a comparatively simple linear system.For parameter uncertainty of motion model,the controller is designed with mixed-sensitivity method based on H-infinity robust control theory.Simulation results show better robustness improved by this control method for roll stabilizing of AUV navigating near water surface.     

Discrete time-delay control of an autonomous underwater vehicle: Theory and experimental results

A discrete time-delay control (DTDC) law for a general six degrees of freedom unsymmetric autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is presented. Hydrodynamic parameters like added mass coefficients and drag coefficients, which are generally uncertain, are not required by the controller. This control law cancels the uncertainties in the AUV dynamics by direct estimation of the uncertainties using time-delay estimation technique. The discrete-time version of the time-delay control does not require the derivative of the system state to be measured or estimated, which is required by the continuous-time version of the controller. This particularly provides an advantage over continuous-time controller in terms of computational effort or availability of sensors for measuring state derivatives, i.e., linear and angular accelerations. Implementation issues for practical realization of the controller are discussed. Experiments on a test-bed AUV were conducted in depth, pitch, and yaw degrees of freedom. Results show that the proposed control law performs well in the presence of uncertainties.     

Design of a sliding mode fuzzy controller for the guidance and control of an autonomous underwater vehicle

This work demonstrates the feasibility of applying a sliding mode fuzzy controller to motion control and line of sight guidance of an autonomous underwater vehicle. The design method of the sliding mode fuzzy controller offers a systematical means of constructing a set of shrinking-span and dilating-span membership functions for the controller. Stability and robustness of the control system are guaranteed by properly selecting the shrinking and dilating factors of the fuzzy membership functions. Control parameters selected for a testbed vehicle, AUV-HM1, are evaluated through tank and field experiments. Experimental results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed controller in dealing with model uncertainties, non-linearities of the vehicle dynamics, and environmental disturbances caused by ocean currents and waves.     

Robust trajectory control of underwater vehicles using time delay control law

A new control scheme for robust trajectory control based on direct estimation of system dynamics is proposed for underwater vehicles. The proposed controller can work satisfactorily under heavy uncertainty that is commonly encountered in the case of underwater vehicle control. The dynamics of the plant are approximately canceled through the feedback of delayed accelerations and control inputs. Knowledge of the bounds on uncertain terms is not required. It is shown that only the rigid body inertia matrix is sufficient to design the controller. The control law is conceptually simple and computationally easy to implement. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated through simulations and implementation issues are discussed.     

开架式水下机器人运动的模糊非线性PD控制方法

由于水下机器人系统的非线性动力学特性和工作环境的复杂性和不确定性,如何更好地设计水下机器人作业时的运动控制器一直是其实用化过程中没能得到很好解决的问题。结合模糊逻辑和S面控制,利用T—S推理结构,设计了一种兼具局部和全局调整功能的模糊非线性PD(m)控制器,仿真结果表明,其控制效果要优于采用单一控制参数的S面控制器。     

Path following control of fully-actuated autonomous underwater vehicle in presence of fast-varying disturbances

This paper presents an improved active disturbances rejecter control (ADRC) for path following control of autonomous underwater vehicles under significant fast-varying disturbances caused by waves and sea currents. Two significant and efficient improvements are introduced to the traditional ADRC in order to accomplish this task. First, a generalized ESO (GESO) and Harmonic ESO (HESO) were designed to achieve a high disturbances estimation quality. Secondly, two AUV path following controllers based on ADRC-GESO and ADRC-HESO were designed to ensure a high performance tracking in presence of periodic-type disturbances. Finally, numerical simulations were performed and the obtained results showed very significant enhancements of robustness and tracking accuracy by the proposed methods compared to conventional ADRC.     

Absolute positioning of an autonomous underwater vehicle using GPS and acoustic measurements

Kinematic global positioning system (GPS) positioning and underwater acoustic ranging can combine to locate an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with an accuracy of /spl plusmn/30cm (2-/spl sigma/) in the global International Terrestrial Reference Frame 2000 (ITRF2000). An array of three precision transponders, separated by approximately 700 m, was established on the seafloor in 300-m-deep waters off San Diego. Each transponder's horizontal position was determined with an accuracy of /spl plusmn/8 cm (2-/spl sigma/) by measuring two-way travel times with microsecond resolution between transponders and a shipboard transducer, positioned to /spl plusmn/10 cm (2-/spl sigma/) in ITRF2000 coordinates with GPS, as the ship circled each seafloor unit. Travel times measured from AUV to ship and from AUV to transponders to ship were differenced and combined with AUV depth from a pressure gauge to estimate ITRF2000 positions of the AUV to /spl plusmn/1 m (2-/spl sigma/). Simulations show that /spl plusmn/30 cm (2-/spl sigma/) absolute positioning of the AUV can be realized by replacing the time-difference approach with directly measured two-way travel times between AUV and seafloor transponders. Submeter absolute positioning of underwater vehicles in water depths up to several thousand meters is practical. The limiting factor is knowledge of near-surface sound speed which degrades the precision to which transponders can be located in the ITRF2000 frame.     

Robust control for an autonomous underwater vehicle that suppresses pitch and yaw coupling

Attitude control systems for autonomous underwater vehicles are often implemented with separate controllers for pitch motion in the vertical plane and yaw motion in the horizontal plane. We propose a novel time-varying model for a streamlined autonomous underwater vehicle that explicitly displays the coupling between yaw and pitch motion due to nonzero roll angle and/or roll rate. The model facilitates the use of a multi-input multi-output H_∞ control design that is robust to yaw-pitch coupling. The efficacy of our approach is demonstrated with field trials.     

Experiments on vision guided docking of an autonomous underwater vehicle using one camera

This paper introduces an underwater docking procedure for the test-bed autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) platform called ISiMI using one charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. The AUV is optically guided by lights mounted around the entrance of a docking station and a vision system consisting of a CCD camera and a frame grabber in the AUV. This paper presents an image processing procedure to identify the dock by discriminating between light images, and proposes a final approach algorithm based on the vision guidance. A signal processing technique to remove noise on the defused grabbed light images is introduced, and a two-stage final approach for stable docking at the terminal instant is suggested. A vision-guidance controller was designed with conventional PID controllers for the vertical plane and the horizontal plane. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the vision-guided docking system of the AUV.     

State-dependent Riccati equation-based robust dive plane control of AUV with control constraints

The paper treats the question of suboptimal dive plane control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) using the state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) technique. The SDRE method provides an effective mean of designing nonlinear control systems for minimum as well as nonminimum phase AUV models. It is assumed that the hydrodynamic parameters of the nonlinear vehicle model are imprecisely known, and in order to obtain a practical design, a hard constraint on control fin deflection is imposed. The problem of depth control is treated as a robust nonlinear output (depth) regulation problem with constant disturbance and reference exogenous signals. As such an internal model of first-order fed by the tracking error is constructed. A quadratic performance index is chosen for optimization and the algebraic Riccati equation is solved to obtain a suboptimal control law for the model with unconstrained input. For the design of model with fin angle constraints, a slack variable is introduced to transform the constrained control input problem into an unconstrained problem, and a suboptimal control law is designed for the augmented system using a modified performance index. Using the center manifold theorem, it is shown that in the closed-loop system, the system trajectories are regulated to a manifold (called output zeroing manifold) on which the depth tracking error is zero and the equilibrium state is asymptotically stable. Simulation results are presented which show that effective depth control is accomplished in spite of the uncertainties in the system parameters and control fin deflection constraints.     

Dynamical analysis and robust control for dive plane of supercavitating vehicles

The high-speed supercavitating vehicle (HSSV) utilizes advanced technology that enables an underwater vehicle to reach its unprecedented high speed. The vertical motion control of the HSSV is challenging problem because of its complex dynamics with nonlinear planing force, parametric uncertainties, external disturbances, actuator saturation, and sensor noises. This paper deals with dynamical analysis and a robust H∞ loop-shaping synthesis with modified PID (proportional-integral-derivative) algorithm to control the dive plane maneuver of the HSSV. Typically, the control scheme has the low order structure and provides robustness against dynamic uncertainties, which can be implemented using the bilinear matrix inequality (BMI) optimization of an equivalent Schur formula. Simulation results show that the controlled vehicle system provides good performance and high robustness against uncertainties, ensuring no-overshoot and fast in time-domain responses. In addition, the control algorithm can decouple the dynamic interactions in the multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system, overcoming parametric uncertainty, planing force, and actuator saturation while minimizing the effect of the strong external disturbances and measurement noises.     

Studies on an algorithm to control the roll motion using active fins

The very purpose of attaching fins to the hull is to reduce the roll motions of a ship. Roll minimization is a requisite for various operations in the seas. The presence of fin system provides enhanced state of stabilization especially when the vessel is performing a fast maneuvering amidst rough environmental disturbance. The fins in turn are activated by electro-hydraulic mechanism based on the in-built intelligence as per control theory like proportional–integral–derivative (PID) or fuzzy logic. As per this paper, fin system is activated using PID control algorithm. A frigate-type warship is considered for the demonstration purpose. Nonlinear roll motions are controlled using active fins. Lift characteristics of the fins in hydrodynamic flow were studied using CFD package fluent.Good amount of reduction in roll amplitude is achieved from various simulations in random sea. The approach can be used for any irregular sea conditions.     

A task-based hierarchical control strategy for autonomous motion of an unmanned surface vehicle swarm

In this paper, a hierarchical control framework with relevant algorithms is proposed to achieve autonomous navigation for an underactuated unmanned surface vehicle (USV) swarm. In order to implement automatic target tracking, obstacle avoidance and avoid collisions between group members, the control framework is divided into three layers based on task assignments: flocking strategy design, motion planning and control input design. The flocking strategy design transmits some basic orders to swarm members. Motion planning applies the potential function method and then improves it; thus, the issue of autonomous control is transformed into one of designing the velocity vector. In the last layer, the control inputs (surge force and yaw moment) are designed using the sliding mode method, and the problem of underactuation is handled synchronously. The proposed closed-loop controller is shown to be semi-asymptotically stable by applying Lyapunov stability theory, and the effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated via numeric simulations of a homogeneous USV swarm.     

基于分布式控制力矩陀螺的水下航行器轨迹跟踪控制

基于控制力矩陀螺群(CMGs)的水下航行器具有低速或零速机动的能力。采用基于分布式CMGs的水下航行器方案,并研究其水平面的轨迹跟踪控制问题。通过全局微分同胚变换将非完全对称的动力学模型解耦成标准欠驱动控制模型,并根据简化的模型构建其轨迹跟踪的误差动力学模型,将轨迹跟踪控制问题转化为误差模型镇定问题。基于一种分流神经元模型和反步法设计了系统的轨迹跟踪控制律,该控制器不需要对任何虚拟控制输入进行求导计算,且能确保跟踪误差的最终一致有界性。仿真结果表明该控制器能够实现在不依赖动力学参数先验知识的情况下对光滑轨迹的有效跟踪。