A Sensor-Based Controller for Homing of Underactuated AUVs

A new sensor-based homing integrated guidance and control law is presented to drive an underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) toward a fixed target, in three dimensions, using the information provided by an ultrashort baseline (USBL) positioning system. The guidance and control law is first derived using quaternions to express the vehicle's attitude kinematics, which are directly obtained from the time differences of arrival (TDOA) measured by the USBL sensor. The dynamics are then included resorting to backstepping techniques. The proposed Lyapunov-based control law yields global asymptotic stability in the absence of external disturbances and is further extended, keeping the same properties, to the case where constant known ocean currents affect the dynamics of the vehicle. Finally, a globally exponentially stable nonlinear TDOA and range-based observer is introduced to estimate the ocean current and uniform asymptotic stability is obtained for the overall closed-loop system. Simulations are presented illustrating the performance of the proposed solutions.      

Robust fuzzy 3D path following for autonomous underwater vehicle subject to uncertainties

This paper addresses a three-dimensional (3D) path following control problem for underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) subject to both internal and external uncertainties. A two-layered framework synthesizing the 3D guidance law and heuristic fuzzy control is proposed to achieve robust adaptive following along a predefined path. In the first layer, a 3D guidance controller for underactuated AUV is presented to guarantee the stability of path following in the kinematics stage. In the second layer, a heuristic adaptive fuzzy algorithm based on the guidance command and feedback linearization Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller is developed in the dynamics stage to account for the nonlinear dynamics and system uncertainties, including inaccuracy modelling parameters and time-varying environmental disturbances. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis of the heuristic fuzzy controller is presented. Against most existing methods for 3D path following, the proposed robust fuzzy control scheme reduces the design and implementation costs of complicated dynamics controller, and relaxes the knowledge of the accuracy dynamics modelling and environmental disturbances. Finally, numerical simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control framework and illustrate the outperformance of the proposed controller as well.     

Trajectory Tracking Control of an Underactuated Underwater Vehicle Redundant Manipulator System

The purpose of this study is to control the position of an underactuated underwater vehicle manipulator system (U‐UVMS). It is possible to control the end‐effector using a regular 6‐DOF manipulator despite the undesired displacements of the underactuated vehicle within a certain range. However, in this study an 8‐DOF redundant manipulator is used in order to increase the positioning accuracy of the end‐effector. The redundancy is resolved according to the criterion of minimal vehicle and joint motions. The underactuated underwater vehicle redundant manipulator system is modeled including the hydrodynamic forces for the manipulator in addition to those for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The shadowing effects of the bodies on each other are also taken into account when computing the hydrodynamic forces. The Newton‐Euler formulation is used to derive the system equations of motion including the thruster dynamics. In order to establish the end‐effector trajectory tracking control of the system, an inverse dynamics control law is formulated. The effectiveness of the control law even in the presence of parameter uncertainties and disturbing ocean currents is illustrated by simulations.     

带有内部转子的自主水下航行器的跟踪控制

研究了水平面内自主水下航行器(AUV)的轨迹跟踪控制问题。AUV由主推进器和一个内部转子驱动,可视为欠驱动系统。建立了带有外界扰动及模型不确定性的系统数学模型。为了对侧向运动和偏航运动进行解耦,采用了一种坐标转换。基于Lyapunov直接法,针对转换后的模型设计了一种跟踪控制律以使得位置跟踪误差收敛于零点左右的一个球域内。考虑到电机控制系统中的干扰和误差,对转子电机进行了控制设计以实现系统跟踪误差的全局镇定。仿真结果表明控制律对建模误差具有一定的鲁棒性。     

基于自适应Backstepping的欠驱动AUV三维航迹跟踪控制

为了实现欠驱动自治水下机器人（AUV）三维航迹跟踪控制,基于非完整系统理论分析了AUV缺少横向推进器时的欠驱动控制系统特性,并验证了欠驱动AUV存在加速度约束不可积性.基于李亚普诺夫稳定性理论,利用自适应Backstepping设计连续时变的航迹点跟踪控制器,以抑制外界海流的干扰.仿真实验表明,所设计的控制器能实现欠驱动AUV对一序列三维航迹点的渐近镇定,并且航迹跟踪的精确性和鲁棒性明显优于PID控制.     

基于离散滑模预测的欠驱动AUV三维航迹跟踪控制

针对欠驱动自主水下航行器（AUV）的模型不确定和外界海流干扰问题,为了实现欠驱动AUV的三维航迹跟踪控制,采用虚拟向导法建立空间运动误差离散化模型.基于递归滑模思想设计离散滑模预测控制器,利用滚动优化和反馈校正方法补偿了不确定项对滑模预测模型的影响.最后针对某欠驱动AUV进行了空间曲线跟踪控制仿真实验.结果表明,所设计的控制器可以较好地克服时变非线性水动力阻尼对系统的影响,并对外界海流干扰有较好的抑制作用,保证了欠驱动AUV三维航迹跟踪系统的鲁棒性,实现了三维航迹的精确跟踪.     

欠驱动AUV的直线航迹跟踪控制

研究了欠驱动自主水下航行器的水平面直线航迹跟踪控制问题。针对传统方法所设计的直线航迹跟踪控制力矩较为复杂的问题,提出了基于级联系统理论的控制力矩设计方法,并通过构造李亚普诺夫函数,推导出了具有全局渐近稳定的控制力矩。方法控制力矩设计简单并具有直观的理论稳定性分析,避免了传统控制方法所设计的控制力矩存在的复杂性问题。最后,仿真结果证明了控制器能保证闭环系统所有状态渐近稳定,达到了欠驱动AUV直线航迹跟踪控制目的,验证了所提出方法的有效性和可行性。     

基于迭代滑模增量反馈的欠驱动AUV地形跟踪控制

为实现欠驱动自治水下机器人(AUV)在未知海流干扰作用下的地形跟踪控制,提出一种基于非线性迭代滑模增量反馈的航迹跟踪控制器.基于虚拟向导的方法,建立AUV垂直面航迹跟踪误差方程.采用迭代方法,设计滑模增量反馈控制器,无需对AUV模型参数不确定部分和海流干扰进行估计,这样避免了AUV俯仰舵的抖振现象,并且减小了输出反馈控制的稳态误差与超调问题.仿真实验表明,所设计的控制器对AUV系统的模型参数摄动及海流干扰变化不敏感,所设计的参数易于调节.     

A two‐step control approach for docking of autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper presents a novel integrated guidance and control strategy for docking of autonomous underwater vehicles. The approach to the base, and hence the control design, is divided in two steps: (i) in the first, at higher speed, the vehicle dynamics is assumed to be underactuated, and an appropriate control law is derived to steer the vehicle towards the final docking path, achieving convergence to zero of the appropriate error variables for almost all initial conditions; (ii) in the second stage, at low speed, the vehicle is assumed to be fully actuated, and a robust control law is designed that achieves convergence to zero of the appropriate error variables for all initial conditions, in the presence of parametric model uncertainty. Simulations are presented illustrating the performance of the proposed controllers, including model uncertainty and sensor noise. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

水下机器人高度信息融合与欠驱动地形跟踪控制

研究了配置高度计和多普勒速度计(DVL)的欠驱动水下机器人地形跟踪控制问题.采用Takagi-Sugeno推理方法对高度计和DVL两种传感器的高度信息进行融合,提高了高度信息感知能力.将地形跟踪分为速度控制和深度控制问题,分别使用S面控制方法设计速度控制器和反步法设计欠驱动深度控制器.最后,通过实际海洋实验对研究的方法进行了验证,实验结果表明该文提出的方法是有效的.     

Robust adaptive trajectory tracking control of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles with prescribed performance

In this paper, a novel robust adaptive trajectory tracking control scheme with prescribed performance is developed for underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) subject to unknown dynamic parameters and disturbances. A simple error mapping function is proposed in order to guarantee that the trajectory tracking error satisfies the prescribed performance. A novel additional control based on Nussbaum function is proposed to handle the underactuation of AUVs. The compounded uncertain item caused by the unknown dynamic parameters and disturbances is transformed into a linear parametric form with only single unknown parameter called virtual parameter. On the basis of the above, a novel robust adaptive trajectory tracking control law is developed using dynamic surface control technique, where the adaptive law online provides the estimation of the virtual parameter. Strict stability analysis indicates that the designed control law ensures uniform ultimate boundedness of the AUV trajectory tracking closed‐loop control system with prescribed tracking performance. Simulation results on an AUV in two different disturbance cases with dynamic parameter perturbation verify the effectiveness of our adaptive trajectory tracking control scheme.     

自主水下航行器的变质心跟踪控制

The trajectory-tracking control problem is investigated for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) moving in the vertical plane using an internal point mass and a rear thruster as actuators. Combined with the dynamics of the point mass, the AUV is modeled as an underactuated system. A Lyapunov-based tracking controller is proposed by using backstepping approach to stabilize the error dynamics and force the position errors to a small neighborhood of the origin. Simulation results validate the proposed tracking approach.     

AUV电动舵机伺服控制与驱动研究

舵机系统设计是水下自主航行器实现精确制导与控制规律的基础.以高速MCU为平台,通过模拟量高线性光耦隔离、电机H桥功率驱动等关键功能模块的研究,实现了电动舵机伺服控制与驱动系统的一体化设计;基于比例积分的控制算法进行了性能预报仿真.分析表明,所设计的电动舵机伺服控制与驱动系统功能完备,性能满足要求.研究成果为水下自主航行器全电作动技术的发展奠定了基础.     

Optimal Guidance for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation within Undersea Areas of Current Disturbances

Simulated navigations of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) achieved by the minimum time guidance within undersea areas of current disturbances are presented. When an AUV has to transit to a given destination within an area of current disturbance, ingenious guidance enables the minimum time navigation. In this study, a numerical solution procedure for an optimal heading guidance law is developed. As the optimal heading reference, the solution of the optimal guidance law is fed to the heading controller. Simulated optimal navigations are realized on the basis of the dynamics of an AUV 'r2D4'. The r2D4 is a deep-ocean-exploring AUV, developed by the Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo. The developed procedure never fails to derive the optimal heading sequence within a finite computational time, provided that the current velocity in the navigation region is known a priori. As a fail-safe strategy in achieving the optimal navigation, the concept of quasi-optimal navigation is presented. The quasi-optimal navigation is implemented by on-site updates of optimal guidances followed by the heading tracking control.     

Integrated Guidance and Feedback Control of Underactuated Robotics System in SE(3)

An integrated guidance and feedback control scheme for steering an underactuated vehicle through desired waypoints in three-dimensional space, is developed here. The underactuated vehicle is modeled as a rigid body with four control inputs. These control inputs actuate the three degrees of freedom of rotational motion and one degree of freedom of translational motion in a vehicle body-fixed coordinate frame. This actuation model is appropriate for a wide range of underactuated vehicles including spacecraft with internal attitude actuators, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, fixed-wing multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), maneuverable robotic vehicles, etc. The guidance problem is developed on the special Euclidean group of rigid body motions, SE(3), in the framework ofgeometric mechanics, which represents the vehicle dynamics globally on this configuration manifold. The integrated guidance and control algorithm selects the desired trajectory for the translational motion that passes through the given waypoints, and the desired trajectory for the attitude based on the desired thrust direction to achieve the translational motion trajectory. A feedback control law is then obtained to steer the underactuated vehicle towards the desired trajectories in translation and rotation. This integrated guidance and control scheme takes into account known bounds on control inputs and generates a trajectory that is continuous and at least twice differentiable, which can be implemented with continuous and bounded control inputs. The integrated guidance and feedback control scheme is applied to an underactuated quadcopter UAV to autonomously generate a trajectory through a series of given waypoints in SE(3) and track the desired trajectory in finite time. The overall stability analysis of the feedback system is addressed. Discrete time models for the dynamics and control schemes of the UAV are obtained in the form of Lie group variational integrators using the discrete Lagrange-d’Alembert principle. Almost global asymptotic stability of the feedback system over its state space is shown analytically and verified through numerical simulations.     

Typhoon at CommsNet13: Experimental experience on AUV navigation and localization

This paper presents two acoustic-based techniques for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) navigation within an underwater network of fixed sensors. The proposed algorithms exploit the positioning measurements provided by an Ultra-Short Base Line (USBL) transducer on-board the vehicle to aid the navigation task. In the considered framework the acoustic measurements are embedded in the communication network scheme, causing time-varying delays in ranging with the fixed nodes. The results presented are obtained with post-processing elaborations of the raw experimental data collected during the CommsNet13 campaign, organized and scientifically led by the NATO Science and Technology Organization Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE). The experiment involved several research institutions and included among its objectives the evaluation of on-board acoustic USBL systems for navigation and localization of AUVs. The ISME groups of the Universities of Florence and Pisa jointly participated to the experiment with one Typhoon class vehicle. This is a 300 m depth rated AUV with acoustic communication capabilities originally developed by the two groups for archaeological search in the framework of the THESAURUS project. The CommsNet13 Typhoon, equipped with an acoustic modem/USBL head, navigated within the fixed nodes acoustic network deployed by CMRE. This allows the comparison between inertial navigation, acoustic self-localization and ground truth represented by GPS signals (when the vehicle was at the surface).     

基于自适应滑模的欠驱动无人艇轨迹跟踪控制算法

针对欠驱动水面无人艇在航行过程中存在的海洋环境干扰、数学模型参数不确定、执行器故障等问题,提出了一种基于扰动观测器与神经网络技术的自适应滑模轨迹跟踪策略。在无人艇三自由度模型的基础上,结合视线制导率,提出了一种新的轨迹跟踪制导策略。采用自适应滑模控制技术设计了欠驱动无人艇轨迹跟踪控制器,有效地抑制了执行器衰减故障对无人艇控制系统的影响;同时运用了非线性扰动观测器和自适应径向基函数神经网络分别对无人艇受到的外界干扰和模型参数不确定性进行补偿和拟合,提高了控制系统的抗干扰能力。基于Lyapunov定理证明了所设计的控制系统的稳定性,并在MATLAB中进行了仿真测试。仿真结果表明,所提出的轨迹跟踪控制算法可以在较为复杂的环境下实现对欠驱动无人艇的精准控制;相较于对比算法,位置的平均跟踪误差减小了80%以上,具备较高的稳定性和鲁棒性。     

Stabilization and Tracking Control of X‐Z Inverted Pendulum Using Flatness Based Active Disturbance Rejection Control

A flatness based robust active disturbance rejection control technique scheme with tracking differentiator is proposed for the problem of stabilization and tracking control of the X‐Z inverted pendulum known as a special underactuated, non‐feedback linearizable mechanical system. The differential parameterization on the basis of linearizing the system around an arbitrary equilibrium decouples the underactuated system into two lower order systems, resulting in two lower‐order extended state observers. Using a tracking differentiator to arrange the transient process utilizes the problem of stabilization and tracking control and gives a relatively small initial estimation error, which enlarges the range of the controller parameters. The convincing analysis of the proposed modified linear extended state observer is presented to show its high effectiveness on estimating the states and the extended states known as the total disturbances consisting of the unknown external disturbances and the nonlinearities neglected by the linearization. Simulation results on the stabilization and tracking control of the X‐Z inverted pendulum, including a comparative simulation with an all‐state‐feedback sliding mode controller are presented to show the advantages of the combination of flatness and active disturbance rejection control techniques.     

欠驱动水下航行器三维直线航迹跟踪控制

针对欠驱动水下航行器的三维直线航迹跟踪控制问题,基于虚拟向导建立了三维航迹跟踪误差模型,采用反馈增益反步法设计航迹跟踪控制器,通过合理选择控制器参数消除了部分非线性项,与传统反步法设计相比简化了虚拟控制量的形式,并且能够避免基于视线法设计导引律时存在固有奇异值点的问题.基于李雅普诺夫稳定性理论分析了闭环跟踪误差系统的渐近稳定性.最后将设计的控制器应用于欠驱动水下航行器进行仿真实验,结果表明控制器具有精确的三维航迹的跟踪能力,并对外界干扰和模型参数不确定性具有较好的鲁棒性.     

Switched seesaw control for the stabilization of underactuated vehicles

This paper addresses the stabilization of a class of nonlinear systems in the presence of disturbances, using switching controllers. To this effect we introduce two new classes of switched systems and provide conditions under which they are input-to-state practically stable (ISpS). By exploiting these results, a methodology for control systems design—called switched seesaw control—is obtained that allows for the development of nonlinear control laws yielding input-to-state stability. The range of applicability and the efficacy of the methodology proposed are illustrated via two nontrivial design examples. Namely, stabilization of the extended nonholonomic double integrator (ENDI) and stabilization of an underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in the presence of input disturbances and measurement noise.