Relative velocity control and integral line of sight for path following of autonomous surface vessels: Merging intuition with theory

The integral line-of-sight guidance law for path following applications of autonomous surface vessels is presented in a unified manner, merging intuitive and theoretical aspects of this valuable control technique. Straight line path following scenarios of underactuated surface vessels in the presence of unknown constant irrotational ocean currents are considered. The integral line-of-sight guidance and two feedback controllers are combined into a cascaded configuration where the integral effect in the line-of-sight guidance is introduced to counteract the disturbance. The chosen integration law is defined to reduce the risk of wind-up effects, and it is shown that the integral action in the line-of-sight guidance law performs a vectorial sum between the vessel relative velocity and the unknown current velocity to compensate for the drift. Moreover, only relative velocities are used in the feedback loop since the ocean current is assumed constant and irrotational. Redefining the vessel model with relative velocities significantly simplifies the control system compared to the approach based on absolute velocities. Closed-loop uniform local exponential stability is achieved for path following of straight line paths. Furthermore, in steady state, the presented guidance law paired with measurements of the absolute speed and the relative speed of the vessel yields to an estimation of the ocean current. Simulations are presented to support the theoretical results.

[1]  T.I. Fossen,et al.  Principles of Guidance-Based Path Following in 2D and 3D , 2005, Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[2]  Elena Panteley,et al.  Exponential tracking control of a mobile car using a cascaded approach , 1998 .

[3]  Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen,et al.  Path following of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles in the presence of ocean currents , 2012, 2012 IEEE 51st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC).

[4]  Fotis A. Papoulias.  BIFURCATION ANALYSIS OF LINE OF SIGHT VEHICLE GUIDANCE USING SLIDING MODES , 1991 .

[5]  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).

[6]  P. Olver.  Nonlinear Systems , 2013 .

[7]  Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen,et al.  Straight Line Path Following for Formations of Underactuated Marine Surface Vessels , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[8]  Roger Skjetne,et al.  Line-of-sight path-following along regularly parametrized curves solved as a generic maneuvering problem , 2011, IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference.

[9]  Pedro Encarnação,et al.  Path Following for Marine Vehicles in the Presence of Unknown Currents 1 , 2000 .

[10]  Antonio Pedro Aguiar,et al.  Modeling and control of an autonomous underwater shuttle for the transport of benthic laboratories , 1997, Oceans '97. MTS/IEEE Conference Proceedings.

[11]  Giuseppe Casalino,et al.  Closed loop time invariant control of 3D underactuated underwater vehicles , 2001, Proceedings 2001 ICRA. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.01CH37164).

[12]  Thor I. Fossen,et al.  Handbook of Marine Craft Hydrodynamics and Motion Control: Fossen/Handbook of Marine Craft Hydrodynamics and Motion Control , 2011 .

[13]  Asgeir J. Sørensen,et al.  Output feedback control of slender body underwater vehicles with current estimation , 2007, Int. J. Control.

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

[15]  Alessandro Antonio Zizzari,et al.  A Proof of Concept for the Guidance of 3D Underactuated Vehicles Subject to Constant Unknown Disturbances , 2012 .

[16]  Thor I. Fossen,et al.  Passivity-Based Designs for Synchronized Path Following , 2006, Proceedings of the 45th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[17]  Thor I. Fossen,et al.  Path following of straight lines and circles for marine surface vessels , 2004 .

[18]  Antonio M. Pascoal,et al.  Nonlinear path following with applications to the control of autonomous underwater vehicles , 2003, 42nd IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37475).

[19]  João P. Hespanha,et al.  Trajectory-Tracking and Path-Following of Underactuated Autonomous Vehicles With Parametric Modeling Uncertainty , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

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

[21]  E. Panteley,et al.  On global uniform asymptotic stability of nonlinear time-varying systems in cascade , 1998 .

[22]  Asgeir J. Sørensen,et al.  Relative Velocity Control and Integral LOS for Path Following of Underactuated Surface Vessels , 2012 .

[23]  P. Encarnacao,et al.  Combined trajectory tracking and path following: an application to the coordinated control of autonomous marine craft , 2001, Proceedings of the 40th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.01CH37228).

[24]  K.Y. Pettersen,et al.  Straight line path following for formations of underactuated surface vessels under influence of constant ocean currents , 2009, 2009 American Control Conference.

[25]  Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen,et al.  Integral LOS guidance for horizontal path following of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles in the presence of vertical ocean currents , 2012, 2012 American Control Conference (ACC).

[26]  Asgeir J. Sørensen,et al.  Topics on current compensation for path following applications of underactuated underwater vehicles , 2012 .

[27]  Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen,et al.  Integral LOS control for path following of underactuated marine surface vessels in the presence of constant ocean currents , 2008, 2008 47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[28]  Giuseppe Casalino,et al.  Robust global stabilization of an underactuated marine vehicle on a linear course by smooth time-invariant feedback , 2000, Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (Cat. No.00CH37187).

[29]  Z. Vukic,et al.  Improved basic planar algorithm of vehicle guidance through waypoints by the line of sight , 2004, First International Symposium on Control, Communications and Signal Processing, 2004..

[30]  Leigh McCue,et al.  Handbook of Marine Craft Hydrodynamics and Motion Control [Bookshelf] , 2016, IEEE Control Systems.

[31]  Thor I. Fossen,et al.  Guidance Laws for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles , 2009 .

[32]  Gianluca Antonelli,et al.  A novel adaptive control law for underwater vehicles , 2003, IEEE Trans. Control. Syst. Technol..