Depth control of an underwater vehicle using robust PD controller: real-time experiments

The design of a robust controller for tracking a depth trajectory of an underwater vehicle in presence of unknown perturbations and uncertainties in the physical parameters of the model is presented in this work. The submarine robot used has properties that were analyzed for the development of the dynamic model and the controller. The control strategy developed is based on a PD controller and a second order filter, which adds robustness to the closed loop system. The control strategy has been successfully tested in real-time experiments, and comparisons with respect to a classic PD controller shown that the controller designed presents superior performance.