Regulation of a nonholonomic autonomous underwater vehicle with parametric modeling uncertainty using Lyapunov functions

Addresses the problem of regulating the dynamic model of a nonholonomic underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to a point with a desired orientation. A time-invariant discontinuous controller is proposed that yields convergence of the trajectories of the closed-loop system in the presence of parametric modeling uncertainty. Controller design relies on a non-smooth coordinate transformation in the original state space followed by the derivation of a Lyapunov-based, adaptive, smooth control law in the new coordinates. Convergence of the regulation system is analyzed and simulation results are presented.