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Path-following control of unmanned surface vehicles with unknown dynamics and unmeasured velocities

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Abstract

The path-following control problem of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) with unknown dynamics and unmeasured velocities is addressed in this paper. Main contributions are summarized as below: (1) considering that vehicle velocities are unmeasured directly, a finite-time velocity observer (FVO) is designed by utilizing available position information, which contributes to the path-following control and facilitates the implementation in practical engineering; (2) based on the traditional light-of-sight guidance, a heading-surge (HS) guidance scheme is proposed to guide USV surge velocity and heading angle, simultaneously; (3) in combination with wavelet neural network (WNN) and adaptive technique, unknown dynamics involving model uncertainties and environment interferences can be estimated accurately, thereby significantly enhancing system robustness. By the aid of the HS guidance based adaptive WNN controllers, all the error signals in the closed-loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). Besides, simulation studies and comprehensive comparisons are conducted to demonstrate the satisfactory path-following performance and superiority of the proposed scheme.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 51879023, Grant 61673084, Grant 51879057, and Grant U1806228, in part by the Research Fund from Science and Technology on Underwater Vehicle Technology under Grant 6142215180102, in part by the Dalian Maritime University Postgraduate Innovative Program under Grant BSCXXM024, in part by the LiaoNing Revitalization Talents Program under Grant XLYC1907180, and in part by the Liaoning Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 2019-KF-01-16.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China

    Xingru Qu, Xiao Liang, Yuanhang Hou & Ye Li

  2. Science and Technology on Underwater Vehicle Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, People’s Republic of China

    Ye Li

  3. School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Dalian Minzu University, Dalian, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China

    Rubo Zhang

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  1. Xingru Qu
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  2. Xiao Liang
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  3. Yuanhang Hou
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  4. Ye Li
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  5. Rubo Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiao Liang.

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Qu, X., Liang, X., Hou, Y. et al. Path-following control of unmanned surface vehicles with unknown dynamics and unmeasured velocities. J Mar Sci Technol 26, 395–407 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00773-020-00744-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00773-020-00744-3

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