Position and Attitude Control of an Underactuated Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

• Main Authors: K. Y. Pettersen, O. Egeland
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1996
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.50.2201; http://www.itk.ntnu.no/ansatte/Pettersen_Kristin/CDC96auv.ps

The paper considers control of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with a reduced number of actuators. A nonlinear model describing both the dynamics and the kinematics of an AUV is studied. A continuous periodic time-varying feedback law is presented. It is shown that it exponentially stabilizes the total AUV model using only four actuators. Furthermore, it is shown that if the hydrodynamic restoring forces in roll are large enough, the AUV is exponentially stabilized by this feedback law using only three actuators. Simulation results are presented. 1. Introduction Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) is a field of increasing interest due to its many interesting applications. The AUVs may perform environmental surveying, inspect undersea cables and offshore oil installations, and find sunken ships, aircraft and other lost artifacts. As they are untethered, they may operate under ice, opening up vast, largely unexplored Arctic areas that are inaccessible to any other kind of rese.