Trajectory Tracking of Flapping Foil Bio-mimetic Autonomous Underwater Vehicle using Advanced PID Controller Tuning Methods

This paper presents a model for spring-driven flapping foil propulsion based Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) and its trajectory control for the predefined path. The spring mimics the tail tendons of the fish which helps the biomimetic propulsion of AUV. The equations for the hydrodynamic forces and moments are derived from classical aerofoil theory and the famous Theodorsen function. Conventional Proportional - Integral - Derivative (PID) controller with manual tuning is used to constrain the movement of the vehicle to a predefined path. A fuzzy based PID controller is also implemented in this work for better performance in terms of efficiency and steady state error.