Underactuated ships follow smooth paths with Integral actions and without velocity measurements for feedback: theory and experiments

Steering a ship along a desired path with a prescribed forward speed is a vitally important issue in many offshore applications. This paper presents a global controller that forces a ship without a sway actuator to follow a reference path and without velocity measurements for feedback. Nonlinear damping terms are also included to cover both low- and high-speed applications. Integral actions are added to the controller to compensate for a constant bias of environmental disturbances. Experimental results on a model ship illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

[1]  H. Nijmeijer,et al.  New directions in nonlinear observer design , 1999 .

[2]  Zhong-Ping Jiang,et al.  Robust adaptive path following of underactuated ships , 2004, Autom..

[3]  Roger Skjetne,et al.  Robust output maneuvering for a class of nonlinear systems , 2004, Autom..

[4]  Randy A. Freeman,et al.  Integrator backstepping for rounded controls and control rates , 1998, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[5]  Claude Samson,et al.  Velocity and torque feedback control of a nonholonomic cart , 1991 .

[6]  Pedro Encarnação,et al.  Path Following for Autonomous Marine Craft , 2000 .

[7]  Roger Skjetne,et al.  OUTPUT MANEUVERING FOR A CLASS OF NONLINEAR SYSTEMS , 2002 .

[8]  H. Nijmeijer,et al.  Underactuated ship tracking control: Theory and experiments , 2001 .

[9]  J. Pomirski,et al.  Ship track-keeping: experiments with a physical tanker model , 1998 .

[10]  T. Başar,et al.  Tracking for nonlinear underactuated surface vessels with generalized forces , 2000, Proceedings of the 2000. IEEE International Conference on Control Applications. Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37162).

[11]  S. Chiaverini,et al.  Tracking control for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems with velocity estimation , 2000, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.

[12]  D. Mayne.  Nonlinear and Adaptive Control Design [Book Review] , 1996, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[13]  Khac Duc Do,et al.  Underactuated ship global tracking without measurement of velocities , 2003, Proceedings of the 2003 American Control Conference, 2003..

[14]  Kristin Y. Pettersen,et al.  Way-point tracking control of ships , 2001, Proceedings of the 40th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.01CH37228).

[15]  Olav Egeland,et al.  Control properties of underactuated vehicles , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[16]  M. Akella.  Rigid body attitude tracking without angular velocity feedback , 2000 .

[17]  Zhong-Ping Jiang,et al.  Global tracking control of underactuated ships by Lyapunov's direct method , 2002, Autom..

[18]  Fotis A. Papoulias.  Cross Track Error and Proportional Turning Rate Guidance of Marine Vehicles , 1994 .

[19]  Zoran Vukic,et al.  Adaptive Fuzzy Ship Autopilot for Track-Keeping , 2000 .

[20]  Alessandro Astolfi,et al.  Nonlinear control of feedforward systems with bounded signals , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

[21]  K. D. Do,et al.  Global tracking control of underactuated ships with nonzero off-diagonal terms in their system matrices , 2005, Autom..

[22]  A. Teel.  Global stabilization and restricted tracking for multiple integrators with bounded controls , 1992 .

[23]  L. Praly,et al.  Adaptive nonlinear regulation: estimation from the Lyapunov equation , 1992 .

[24]  Adriaan Arie Johannes Lefeber,et al.  Tracking Control of Nonlinear Mechanical Systems , 2000 .

[25]  H. Sira-Ramfrez.  On the control of the underactuated ship: a trajectory planning approach , 1999, Proceedings of the 38th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.99CH36304).

[26]  Roger Skjetne,et al.  Line-of-sight path following of underactuated marine craft , 2003 .

[27]  Warren E. Dixon,et al.  Tracking and regulation control of an underactuated surface vessel with nonintegrable dynamics , 2000, Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.00CH37187).

[28]  Khac Duc Do,et al.  A global output-feedback controller for stabilization and tracking of underactuated ODIN: A spherical underwater vehicle , 2004, Autom..

[29]  Roger Skjetne,et al.  Adaptive maneuvering, with experiments, for a model ship in a marine control laboratory , 2005, Autom..

[30]  Zhong-Ping Jiang,et al.  Robust and adaptive path following for underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles , 2004 .

[31]  M. T. Rashed,et al.  Numerical solutions of functional integral equations , 2004, Appl. Math. Comput..

[32]  Kristin Y. Pettersen,et al.  Output feedback tracking control for ships , 1999 .

[33]  F. Papoulias,et al.  Hopf bifurcations and nonlinear studies of gain margins in path control of marine vehicles , 1995 .

[34]  Khac Duc Do,et al.  Underactuated ship global tracking under relaxed conditions , 2002, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[35]  Gildas Besancon,et al.  Global output feedback tracking control for a class of Lagrangian systems , 2000, Autom..

[36]  P. Kokotovic,et al.  Global output tracking control of a class of Euler-Lagrange systems , 2000, Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.00CH37187).

[37]  Antonio Loria,et al.  Global Tracking Control of One Degree of Freedom Euler-Lagrange Systems without Velocity Measurements , 1996 .