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Robust trajectory tracking control of underactuated unmanned surface vehicles with exponential stability: theory and experimental validation

Rui Yu (State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China)
Hua Zhou (State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China)

Industrial Robot

ISSN: 0143-991x

Article publication date: 25 November 2021

Issue publication date: 1 June 2022

133

Abstract

Purpose

Trajectory tracking is an important issue to underactuated unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). However, parametric uncertainties and environmental disturbances bring great challenges to the precise trajectory tracking control of USVs. This paper aims to propose a robust trajectory tracking control algorithm with exponential stability for underactuated USVs with parametric uncertainties and unknown environmental disturbances.

Design/methodology/approach

In this method, the backstepping method and sliding mode control method are combined to ensure that the underactuated USV can track and maintain the desired trajectory. In addition, a modified switching-gain adaptation algorithm is adopted to enhance the robustness and reduce chattering. Besides, the global exponential stability of the closed-loop system is proved by Lyapunov’s direct method.

Findings

The proposed method in this paper offers a robust trajectory tracking solution to underactuated USVs and it is verified by simulations and experiments. Compared with the traditional proportion-integral-derivative method and several state-of-the-art algorithms, the proposed method has superior performance in simulation and experimental results.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a robust trajectory tracking control algorithm with exponential stability for underactuated USVs. The proposed method achieves exponential stability with better robustness and transient performance.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgment is given to the financial supports from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51521064, 51890880, 51821093 and 51890885), and the National Key Research and Development Project under grant 2018YFB2001203.

Citation

Yu, R. and Zhou, H. (2022), "Robust trajectory tracking control of underactuated unmanned surface vehicles with exponential stability: theory and experimental validation", Industrial Robot, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 726-734. https://doi.org/10.1108/IR-07-2021-0162

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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