PID and Fuzzy Control of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) have been playing an increasingly important role in military and civilian operations and been widely used in various applications. The main issue associated with the development and design of UUV’s is the control system design. These vehicles have nonlinear dynamics and coupling, and tend to exhibit time varying characteristics. In addition they are subject to different environmental disturbances. The successful completion of the UUV missions depends on the control provided by the autopilot unit mounted on board. A robust controller that can handle non-linear dynamics and parameter variations is provided by the fuzzy logic. In the present work, a comparative study on the application of PID and fuzzy controller for UUV has been described. The non-linear dynamics of the UUV are used in the design and validation of the fuzzy controller and the results are compared with a conventional PID controller.