Iterative Learning Based Output Feedback Path Following Control for Marine Surface Vessels

In this paper, the output feedback path following problem for marine vessels is investigated with model uncertainties and external disturbance. A Serret-Frenet frame based path following kinematics is first introduced. For the output feedback control design, an iterative learning observer (ILO) is established to estimate the system states, and a novel sliding mode backstepping approach is presented, which makes the control gain parameters easy for tuning. The overall closed-loop system is uniformly ultimately bounded based on Lyapunov stability theory. Comparative simulation results validate the effectiveness and disturbance rejection performance of the proposed methodology.