Trajectory tracking control for subsea cruise and docking of Autonomous Underwater Helicopter

To solve the high-precision trajectory tracking problem of an autonomous underwater helicopter (AUH) when cruising and docking underwater, a prescribed performance control method based on a novel performance function and an extended state observer (ESO) is proposed. considering the external disturbances. The scheme can limit the excessive overshoot, set the expected convergence time by designer, and compensate the unknown terms including additional internal disturbances caused by carrying equipment during docking, AUH velocity states and external disturbances, which effectively guarantees the dynamic performance of the system. The simulation verifies this new prescribed performance control method can limit the tracking error within the performance function boundary and converge to the specified steady-state accuracy at a preset time with good dynamic performance.