Robust predictive control of a supercavitating vehicle based on time-delay characteristics and parameter uncertainty

Abstract Supercavitating vehicle can realize high-speed underwater sailing. However, the nonlinear force and time-delay characteristics caused by the tail flapping the cavity wall become the main challenge of the vehicle controller design. Aiming at time-delay characteristics, the nonlinear of planing force, cavity radius perturbation and parameter uncertainty, the paper establishes a time-delay linear-parameter-varying (LPV) model and designs a robust predictive controller with anti-interference performance. In the process of predictive controller design, the variable quadratic function is used to achieve the robustness of the vehicle and reduce the conservatism of the controller design. Meanwhile, the memory state feedback is used to solve the problems of cavitation radius perturbation, control constraints, vehicle parameter uncertainty and external disturbance. The simulation results show that the controller has strong robustness against the disturbance of external parameters, and can guarantee the stability of the system.