Path Following Controller Design for an Underactuated Hovercraft with External Disturbances

This paper addresses the problem of path following control for an underactuated hovercraft in the presence of external disturbances and uncertain parameters. By using the backstepping technique, a path following controller is proposed which is able to steer the hovercraft to a neighborhood of a desired path, obtaining global practical stability. In order to make the vehicle robust to external disturbances and uncertain vehicle parameters, a group of disturbance and linear damping coefficients estimators are designed. Simulation and experimental results are presented and analyzed, validating the efficiency of the proposed control strategy.