Empirical waypoint navigator for overactuated autonomous underwater vehicle using novel kinematic-dynamic controller pair and control allocation techniques

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) is a field of growing interest due to its potential applications in ocean exploration, surveillance, inspection of undersea equipment, defence, and finding sunken ships, aircraft and other lost artifacts. This paper addresses the challenges involved in designing the controller for an open-frame AUV that is described by the complex nonlinear kinematic and dynamic models. The motion control system for navigating to desired way points is proposed for a neutrally buoyant, overactuated, open-frame AUV using a kinematic-dynamic controller pair technique. The proposed controller generates virtual control inputs which are distributed among different actuators using novel control allocation technique. The numerical simulations of the proposed control technique on the Matsya AUV show that the linear control design gives adequate response characteristics for the nonlinear coupled dynamics of the AUV.