A Robust Higher-order Sliding Mode Controller Design for Underwater Vehicles in the Presence of Uncertainties

This paper presents trajectory following of a 6 degrees of freedom (DOFs) underwater vehicle using a robust generalized super-twisting algorithm (GSTA)-based sliding mode controller (SMC) (GSTA-SMC). A Lyapunov stability analysis framework was applied to verify the finite-time convergence of the system trajectories to the sliding manifold. Numerical simulations, both with and without the presence of external disturbances, were conducted using MATLAB/Simulink software. The tracking and chattering effect suppressing capabilities of the proposed controller were compared with the standard super-twisting algorithm (STA)-based sliding mode controller (STA-SMC). The simulation results demonstrated the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed control method.