A Trajectory Control Method for a Strongly Underactuated Spherical Underwater Surveillance Robot

The effective computer control of unmanned autonomous vehicles and robots is a task of rapidly growing importance in the present era of ubiquitous pervasive computing, IoT, and Industry 4.0. Paper discusses a nonlinear trajectory control method of a recently proposed spherical underwater surveillance robot (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle AUV) of 45 kg weight class with strongly underactuated control and highly nonlinear model of dynamics. Paper offers and simulates in Simulink/MATLAB environment a specially designed nonlinear controller that is capable to assure reliable movement of this AUV in two-dimensional space towards desired target as well motion at desired heading angle. The proposed controller is easy for engineering implementation. It is concluded that this type of surveillance robots may be used for monitoring of water areas of Smart City ports.