Sliding mode tracking control of an autonomous underwater glider

The benefit of autonomous underwater gliders is their long range and high endurance for certain types of missions. Also by nature the gliders have relatively low operating speeds and depend strongly on the ocean environment of their operational area. To deal with this complex and changeable ocean environment, make the glider motion robust to parameter variations and disturbances, and track the predetermined output trajectories which connect the initial and final setpoints, an output tracking robust controller for an underwater glider in the vertical plane is designed based on the sliding mode control theory. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the derived controller.