Preparation of Papers for IFAC Conferences & Symposia: Designing a characteristic model-based adaptive path following controller for unmanned surface vehicles

Abstract

Abstract In order to solve the small ship modeling and path-following control problem of unmanned surface vehicles(USV) under the time-varying navigation environment and vessel speed, an adaptive PF controller based on characteristic model and all-coefficient adaptive control algorithm was designed and implemented. Firstly, the characteristic model was set up, (Differential Global Positioning System)DGPS data and compass data were used to estimate parameters of characteristic model online. Secondly, a course and speed cooperative controller was designed and implemented based on the all-coefficient adaptive control method and characteristic model. Finally, the PF controller for USV was designed and implemented using VF guidance law. And the results of the real ship experiments show that the adaptive path-following controller, which has good controlling performance in the condition of real navigation environment.