Three-Dimensional Helical Path Following of an Underwater Biomimetic Vehicle-Manipulator System

This paper aims to investigate the method of 3-D helical path following of an underwater biomimetic vehicle-manipulator system (UBVMS) propelled by undulatory fins (RobCutt-II). By mimicking the unique undulatory propulsion mode of cuttlefish, we hope that RobCutt-II could obtain good low-speed stability, which helps to perform stable and effective underwater operations. For some underwater applications, the UBVMS should autonomously generate and pass through a helical path around specific object for survey and intervention. Therefore, a path-following control scheme is proposed. In particular, the path generator provides a 3-D helical path according to the target position and the specific constraint conditions. To follow the generated path in underwater space, the control architecture, which consists of a guidance system, three active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) subcontrollers, and fuzzy method for control allocation, is proposed. Finally, two experiments conducted on the prototype RobCutt-II illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.