Nonlinear tracking control of autonomous underwater vehicles

Abstract

Discusses 3D motion of underwater vehicles. The authors describe kinematics of an underwater vehicle by six state variables and four inputs, and use a Lyapunov-like function to develop a nonlinear tracking control scheme. The control method effectively makes use of the nonholonomic nature of the system. Simulation results agreed with the theoretical predictions and confirmed the usefulness of the proposed scheme.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>