Motion control for autonomous underwater vehicles: A robust model — Free approach

This paper describes the design and implementation of a robust position tracking control scheme for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). The proposed controller does not require knowledge of the vehicle's dynamic parameters and guarantees prescribed transient and steady state performance despite the presence of external disturbances acting on the vehicle. The resulting scheme is of low complexity and computational cost and thus can be easily integrated to an embedded control platform of an AUV. The proposed control scheme has analytically guaranteed stability and convergence properties, while its applicability and performance are experimentally verified using the Girona500 AUV into two different missions: a) navigation and stabilization to a specific configuration, b) meandrus-like trajectory tracking. In both cases the vehicle was under the influence of time-varying external disturbances caused by a high-pressure water jet installed on the Girona500 manipulator.