Finite-Time Observer Based Guidance and Control of Underactuated Surface Vehicles with Unknown Sideslip Angles and Disturbances

Suffering from complex sideslip angles, path following control of an under actuated surface vehicle (USV) becomes significantly challenging and remains unresolved. In this paper, a finite-time observer based guidance and control (FOGC) scheme for path following of an USV with time-varying and large sideslip angles and unknown external disturbances is proposed. The salient features of the proposed FOGC scheme are as follows: 1) time-varying large sideslip angle is exactly estimated by a finite-time sideslip observer, and thereby contributing to the sideslip-tangent line-of-sight guidance law which significantly enhances the robustness of the guidance system to unknown sideslip angles which are significantly large and time-varying; 2) a finite-time disturbance observer (FDO) is devised to exactly observe unknown external disturbances, and thereby implementing FDO-based surge and heading robust tracking controllers, which possess remarkable tracking accuracy and precise disturbance rejection, simultaneously; and 3) by virtue of cascade analysis and Lyapunov approach, global asymptotic stability of the integrated guidance-control system is rigorously ensured. Simulation studies and comparisons are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed FOGC scheme

State relativity and speed-allocated line-of-sight course control for path-following of underwater vehicles

Path-following is a primary task for most marine, air or space crafts, especially during autonomous operations. Research on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) has received large interests in the last few decades with research incentives emerging from the safe, cost-effective and practical solutions provided by their applications such as search and rescue, inspection and monitoring of pipe-lines ans sub-sea structures. This thesis presents a novel guidance system based on the popular line-of-sight (LOS) guidance law for path-following (PF) of underwater vehicles (UVs) subject to environmental disturbances. Mathematical modeling and dynamics of (UVs) is presented first. This is followed by a comprehensive literature review on guidance-based path-following control of marine vehicles, which includes revised definitions of the track-errors and more detailed illustrations of the general PF problem. A number of advances on relative equations of motion are made, which include an improved understanding of the fluid FLOW frame and expression of its motion states, an analytic method of modeling the signs of forces and moments and the proofs of passivity and boundedness of relative UV systems in 3-D. The revision in the relative equations of motion include the concept of state relativity, which is an improved understanding of relativity of motion states expressed in reference frames and is also useful in incorporating environmental disturbances. In addition, the concept of drift rate is introduced along with a revision on the angles of motion in 3-D. A switching mechanism was developed to overcome a drawback of a LOS guidance law, and the linear and nonlinear stability results of the LOS guidance laws have been provided, where distinctions are made between straight and curved PF cases. The guidance system employs the unique formulation and solution of the speed allocation problem of allocating a desired speed vector into x and y components, and the course control that employs the slip angle for desired heading for disturbance rejection. The guidance system and particularly the general course control problem has been extended to 3-D with the new definition of vertical-slip angle. The overall guidance system employing the revised relative system model, course control and speed allocation has performed well during path-following under strong ocean current and/or wave disturbances and measurement noises in both 2-D and 3-D scenarios. In 2-D and 3-D 4 degrees-of-freedom models (DOF), the common sway-underactuated and fully actuated cases are considered, and in 3-D 5-DOF model, sway and heave underactuated and fully actuated cases are considered. Stability results of the LOS guidance laws include the semi-global exponential stability (SGES) of the switching LOS guidance and enclosure-based LOS guidance for straight and curved paths, and SGES of the loolahead-based LOS guidance laws for curved paths. Feedback sliding mode and PID controllers are applied during PF providing a comparison between them, and simulations are carried out in MatLab

Underwater Vehicles

For the latest twenty to thirty years, a significant number of AUVs has been created for the solving of wide spectrum of scientific and applied tasks of ocean development and research. For the short time period the AUVs have shown the efficiency at performance of complex search and inspection works and opened a number of new important applications. Initially the information about AUVs had mainly review-advertising character but now more attention is paid to practical achievements, problems and systems technologies. AUVs are losing their prototype status and have become a fully operational, reliable and effective tool and modern multi-purpose AUVs represent the new class of underwater robotic objects with inherent tasks and practical applications, particular features of technology, systems structure and functional properties

Development of Robust Control Strategies for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

The resources of the energy and chemical balance in the ocean sustain mankind in many ways. Therefore, ocean exploration is an essential task that is accomplished by deploying Underwater Vehicles. An Underwater Vehicle with autonomy feature for its navigation and control is called Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). Among the task handled by an AUV, accurately positioning itself at a desired position with respect to the reference objects is called set-point control. Similarly, tracking of the reference trajectory is also another important task. Battery recharging of AUV, positioning with respect to underwater structure, cable, seabed, tracking of reference trajectory with desired accuracy and speed to avoid collision with the guiding vehicle in the last phase of docking are some significant applications where an AUV needs to perform the above tasks. Parametric uncertainties in AUV dynamics and actuator torque limitation necessitate to design robust control algorithms to achieve motion control objectives in the face of uncertainties. Sliding Mode Controller (SMC), H / μ synthesis, model based PID group controllers are some of the robust controllers which have been applied to AUV. But SMC suffers from less efficient tuning of its switching gains due to model parameters and noisy estimated acceleration states appearing in its control law. In addition, demand of high control effort due to high frequency chattering is another drawback of SMC. Furthermore, real-time implementation of H / μ synthesis controller based on its stability study is restricted due to use of linearly approximated dynamic model of an AUV, which hinders achieving robustness. Moreover, model based PID group controllers suffer from implementation complexities and exhibit poor transient and steady-state performances under parametric uncertainties. On the other hand model free Linear PID (LPID) has inherent problem of narrow convergence region, i.e.it can not ensure convergence of large initial error to zero. Additionally, it suffers from integrator-wind-up and subsequent saturation of actuator during the occurrence of large initial error. But LPID controller has inherent capability to cope up with the uncertainties. In view of addressing the above said problem, this work proposes wind-up free Nonlinear PID with Bounded Integral (BI) and Bounded Derivative (BD) for set-point control and combination of continuous SMC with Nonlinear PID with BI and BD namely SM-N-PID with BI and BD for trajectory tracking. Nonlinear functions are used for all P,I and D controllers (for both of set-point and tracking control) in addition to use of nonlinear tan hyperbolic function in SMC(for tracking only) such that torque demand from the controller can be kept within a limit. A direct Lyapunov analysis is pursued to prove stable motion of AUV. The efficacies of the proposed controllers are compared with other two controllers namely PD and N-PID without BI and BD for set-point control and PD plus Feedforward Compensation (FC) and SM-NPID without BI and BD for tracking control. Multiple AUVs cooperatively performing a mission offers several advantages over a single AUV in a non-cooperative manner; such as reliability and increased work efficiency, etc. Bandwidth limitation in acoustic medium possess challenges in designing cooperative motion control algorithm for multiple AUVs owing to the necessity of communication of sensors and actuator signals among AUVs. In literature, undirected graph based approach is used for control design under communication constraints and thus it is not suitable for large number of AUVs participating in a cooperative motion plan. Formation control is a popular cooperative motion control paradigm. This thesis models the formation as a minimally persistent directed graph and proposes control schemes for maintaining the distance constraints during the course of motion of entire formation. For formation control each AUV uses Sliding Mode Nonlinear PID controller with Bounded Integrator and Bounded Derivative. Direct Lyapunov stability analysis in the framework of input-to-state stability ensures the stable motion of formation while maintaining the desired distance constraints among the AUVs

Automatic Control and Routing of Marine Vessels

Due to the intensive development of the global economy, many problems are constantly emerging connected to the safety of ships’ motion in the context of increasing marine traffic. These problems seem to be especially significant for the further development of marine transportation services, with the need to considerably increase their efficiency and reliability. One of the most commonly used approaches to ensuring safety and efficiency is the wide implementation of various automated systems for guidance and control, including such popular systems as marine autopilots, dynamic positioning systems, speed control systems, automatic routing installations, etc. This Special Issue focuses on various problems related to the analysis, design, modelling, and operation of the aforementioned systems. It covers such actual problems as tracking control, path following control, ship weather routing, course keeping control, control of autonomous underwater vehicles, ship collision avoidance. These problems are investigated using methods such as neural networks, sliding mode control, genetic algorithms, L2-gain approach, optimal damping concept, fuzzy logic and others. This Special Issue is intended to present and discuss significant contemporary problems in the areas of automatic control and the routing of marine vessels

Design and Experimental Realization of Adaptive Control Schemes for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Research on Autonomous Underwater Vehicle(AUV) has attracted increased attention of control engineering community in the recent years due to its many interesting applications such as in Defense organisations for underwater mine detection, region surveillance, oceanography studies, oil/gas industries for inspection of underwater pipelines and other marine related industries. However, for the realization of these applications, effective motion control algorithms need to be developed. These motion control algorithms require mathematical representation of AUV which comprises of hydrodynamic damping, Coriolis terms, mass and inertia terms etc. To obtain dynamics of an AUV, different analytical and empirical methods are reported in the literature such as tow tank test, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis and on-line system identification. Among these methods, tow-tank test and CFD analysis provide white-box identified model of the AUV dynamics. Thus, the control design using these methods are found to be ineffective in situation of change in payloads of an AUV or parametric variations in AUV dynamics. On the other hand, control design using on-line identification, the dynamics of AUV can be obtained at every sampling time and thus the aforesaid parametric variations in AUV dynamics can be handled effectively. In this thesis, adaptive control strategies are developed using the parameters of AUV obtained through on-line system identification. The proposed algorithms are verified first through simulation and then through experimentation on the prototype AUV. Among various motion control algorithms, waypoint tracking has more practical significance for oceanographic surveys and many other applications. In order to implement, waypoint motion control schemes, Line-of-Sight (LoS) guidance law can be used which is computationally less expensive. In this thesis, adaptive control schemes are developed to implement LoS guidance for an AUV for practical realization of the control algorithm. Further, in order to realize the proposed control algorithms, a prototype AUV is developed in the laboratory. The developed AUV is a torpedo-shaped in order to experience low drag force, underactuated AUV with a single thruster for forward motion and control planes for angular motion. Firstly, the AUV structure such as nose profile, tail profile, hull section and control planes are designed and developed. Secondly, the hardware configuration of the AUV such as sensors, actuators, computational unit, communication module etc. are appropriately selected. Finally, a software framework called Robot Operating System (ROS) is used for seamless integration of various sensors, actuators with the computational unit. ROS is a software platform which provides right platform for the implementation of the control algorithms using the sensor data to achieve autonomous capability of the AUV. In order to develop adaptive control strategies, the unknown dynamics of the AUV is identified using polynomial-based Nonlinear Autoregressive Moving Average eXogenous (NARMAX) model structure. The parameters of this NARMAX model structure are identified online using Recursive Extended Least Square (RELS) method. Then an adaptive controller is developed for realization of the LoS guidance law for an AUV. Using the kinematic equation and the desired path parameters, a Lyapunov based backstepping controller is designed to obtain the reference velocities for the dynamics. Subsequently, a self-tuning PID controller is designed for the AUV to track these reference velocities. Using an inverse optimal control technique, the gains of the selftuning PID controller are tuned on-line. Although, this algorithm is computationally less expensive but there lie issues such as actuator constraints and state constraints which need to be resolved in view of practical realization of the control law. It is also observed that the proposed NARMAX structure of the AUV consists of redundant regressor terms. To alleviate the aforesaid limitations of the Inverse optimal self-tuning control scheme, a constrained adaptive control scheme is proposed that employs a minimum representation of the NARMAX structure (MR-NARMAX) for capturing AUV dynamics. The regressors of the MR-NARMAX structure are identified using Forward Regressor Orthogonal Least Square algorithm. Further, the parameters of this MRNARMAX model structure of the AUV are identified at every sampling time using RELS algorithm. Using the desired path parameters and the identified dynamics, an error objective function is defined which is to be minimized. The minimization problem where the objective function with the state and actuator constraints is formulated as a convex optimization problem. This optimization problem is solved using quadratic programming technique. The proposed MR-NARMAX based adaptive control is verified in the simulation and then on the prototype AUV. From the obtained results it is observed that this algorithm provides successful tracking of the desired heading. But, the proposed control algorithm is computational expensive, as an optimization problem is to be solved at each sampling instant. In order to reduce the computational time, an explicit model predictive control strategy is developed using the concept of multi-parametric programming. A Lyapunov based backstepping controller is designed to generate desired yaw velocity in order to steer the AUV towards the desired path. This explicit model predictive controller is designed using the identified NARMAX model for tracking the desired yaw velocity. The proposed explicit MPC algorithm is implemented first in simulation and then in the prototype AUV. From the simulation and experimental results, it is found that this controller has less computation time and also it considers both the state and actuator constraints whilst exhibiting good tracking performance

Surface unmanned multipurpose research marine vehicle: SUNMARE Project

This paper presents the preliminary activities undertaken for the research project SUNMARE (Surface UNmanned multipurpose research MARine vEhicle), which aims at the development of an innovative autonomous platform for marine, oceanographic, lacustrine, and submerged/semi-submerged cultural heritage monitoring/measurements. SUNMARE is a modular ship comprising of a mother unmanned ship and a smaller autonomous vehicle. Through an innovative fully autonomous launch and recovery system (LARS), the Unmanned surface vehicle (USV) can detach and reconnect to the mother ship. The architecture of the LARS and the on-purposely designed control algorithms are here presented together with statistical recovery success analysis concerning the autonomous dynamic connection of the vehicles, so to assess the reliability of the system

Robust Controller Design for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Worldwide there has been a surge of interest in Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). The ability to operate without human intervention is what makes this technology so appealing. On the other hand, the absence of the human narrows the AUV operation to its control system, computing, and sensing capabilities. Therefore, devising a robust control is mandatory to allow the feasibility of the AUV. Motivated by this fact, this thesis aims to present, discuss and evaluate two linear control solutions being proposed for an AUV developed by a consortium led by CEiiA. To allow the controller design, the dynamic model of this vehicle and respective considerations are firstly addressed. Since the purpose is to enable the vehicle’s operation, devising suitable guidance laws becomes essential. A simple waypoint following and station keeping algorithm, and a path following algorithms are presented. To devise the controllers, a linear version of the dynamic model is derived considering a single operational point. Then, through the decoupling of the linear system into three lightly interactive subsystems, four Proportional Integral Derivative controllers (PIDs) are devised for each Degree Of Freedom (DOF) of the vehicle. A Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) design, based on the decoupling of the linear model into longitudinal and lateral subsystems is also devised. To allocate the controller output throughout the actuators, a control allocation law is devised, which improves maneuverability of the vehicle. The results present a solid performance for both control methods, however, in this work, LQR proved to be slightly faster than PID.É visível, a nível mundial, um aumento considerável do interesse em Veículos Autónomos Subaquáticos (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles - AUV). O que torna esta tecnologia tão atraente é a capacidade de operar sem intervenção humana. Contudo, a ausência do ser humano restringe a operação do AUV ao seu sistema de controlo, computação e capacidades de detecção. Desta forma, conceber um controlo robusto é obrigatório para viabilizar o AUV. Motivado por este facto, esta tese tem como objetivo apresentar, discutir e avaliar duas soluções de controlo linear, a propor a um AUV desenvolvido por um consórcio liderado pelo CEiiA. Para que o projeto do controlador seja possível, o modelo dinâmico deste veículo e respectivas considerações são primeiramente abordados. Com a finalidade de possibilitar a operação do veículo, torna-se essencial a elaboração de leis de guidance adequadas. Para este efeito são apresentados algorítmos de Waypoint following e Station keeping, e de path following. Para a projeção dos controladores é derivada uma versão linear do modelo dinâmico, considerando um único ponto operacional. Através da separação do modelo linear em três subsistemas são criados quatro controladores Proporcional Integral Derivativo (PID) para cada grau de liberdade (Degree Of Freedom - DOF) do veículo. É também projetado um Regulador Linear Quadrático (LQR), baseado na separação do modelo linear em dois subsistemas, longitudinal e lateral. É ainda apresentada uma lei de alocação de controlo para distribuir o sinal de saída dos controladores pelos diferentes atuadores. Esta provou melhorar a manobrabilidade do veículo. Os resultados finais apresentam um desempenho sólido para ambos os métodos de controlo. No entanto, neste trabalho, o LQR provou ser mais rápido do que o PID

Model-based Cooperative Acoustic Navigation and Parameter Identification for Underactuated Underwater Vehicles

This thesis reports novel theoretical and experimental results addressing two increasingly important problems in underwater robotics: model-based cooperative acoustic navigation for underwater vehicles (UVs) lacking a Doppler velocity log (DVL) and dynamic-model parameter estimation for underactuated UVs, such as the now-ubiquitous class of torpedo-shaped UVs. This thesis reports an extension of a method to identify simultaneously UV dynamical plant model parameters (parameters for critical terms such as mass, added mass, hydrodynamic drag, and buoyancy) and control-actuator parameters (control-surface models and thruster model) in 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) to tolerate simulated sensor measurement noise representative of representative of real-world sensor data, as well as extensive numerical simulations to evaluate the sensitivity of the approach to sensor noise. The current state-of-the-art in one-way travel time (OWTT) combined acoustic communication and navigation (cooperative acoustic navigation) is to utilize purely kinematic, constant-velocity plant process models together with an on-board bottom-lock DVL to provide frequent, high-accuracy velocity corrections. However, DVLs are expensive, power consumers, physically large, and limited to acoustic bottom-lock range, which restricts their use to O(10-100m) above the sea floor or beneath surface ice. Simulation and experimental results reported herein indicate the submerged UV position estimate from cooperative acoustic navigation with a kinematic model is poor and even unstable in the absence of DVL velocity observations. These simulation and experimental results also show that cooperative acoustic navigation with a dynamic plant model performs well without a DVL and outperforms DVL-based dead reckoning, at least in the situation presented herein where the magnitude of the ambient water-current velocity is small. The performance of the UV dynamic model, i.e., its ability to predict the vehicle's state, depends primarily on the accuracy of the model structure and model parameters. Accurate estimates of these parameters are also required for model-based control, fault detection, and simulation of UV. While the general form of dynamical plant models for UVs is well understood, accurate values for dynamic-model parameters are impossible to determine analytically, are not provided by UV manufacturers, and can only be determined experimentally. Moreover, oceanographic UVs are subject to frequent changes in physical configuration, including changes in ballasting and trim, on-board equipment, and instrumentation (both external and internal), which may significantly affect the vehicle dynamics. Plant-model parameter estimation is generally more difficult for underactuated, torpedo-shaped UVs than for fully actuated UVs with thrusters because: 1) the reduced actuation available on underactuated UV limits the plant excitation that can be induced from the control inputs, and 2) torpedo-shaped vehicles are often actuated with control surfaces (e.g., fins, wings, rudders, etc), which are difficult to characterize independently of the plant model parameters. For these reasons, we seek an approach to parameter estimation for underactuated UVs in 6 DOF that simultaneously estimates plant and actuator parameters and can be performed routinely in the field with minimal time and effort by the vehicle operator. The goals of this thesis are to advance the state-of-the-art of (1) model-based state estimation for cooperative acoustic navigation of UVs and (2) dynamic plant-model parameter identification for underactuated UVs. The first goal is addressed with the evaluation of a dynamic UV plant model in cooperative acoustic navigation and a comparative analysis of the dynamic UV model and kinematic UV model without a DVL. The second goal is addressed in a collaborative effort comprising: (1) the development of the nullspace-based least squares (NBLS) algorithm for underactuated UV plant-parameter and actuator-parameter estimation in 6 DOF, and (2) the extension of an AID algorithm, and corresponding stability proof, to estimate simultaneously plant-model and actuator parameters for underactuated UVs with diagonal mass and drag matrices in 6 DOF with realistic sensor measurement noise. These capabilities were verified by in situ vehicle experiments with the JHU Iver3 AUV and by simulation studies