Control of an underwater robot system connected to a ship by a slender marine structure

This paper describes the dynamics of a system consisting of a robot system connected to a surface vessel by means of a marine cable, riser or other similar slender marine structure. Only motion in the lateral direction has been considered. A control system is presented for position and velocity control of the robot system. The stability of the control system is analyzed using Lyapunov theory, and the closed loop system is shown to be globally asymptotically stable and robust to environmental disturbances.