Dynamics modeling and motion control for high-speed underwater vehicles using H-infinity synthesis with anti-windup compensator

Abstract

The control synthesis of a high-speed supercavitating vehicle (HSSV) faces many difficulties such as the stability, control, and maneuvering with dynamical uncertainties due to parameter perturbations, external disturbances, unmodeled dynamics, measurement noises, and actuator constraints. Inspired by the HSSV dynamical analysis, this paper proposes the H∞ (i.e. "H-infinity") robust control synthesis to generate a robust low-order controller, which is intended for real implementations to ensure active control actions. Particularly, the presented control scheme includes a feedback component and an anti-windup compensator. The anti-windup synthesis is to provide system stability under actuator saturations. Extensive simulations show that the designed controller provides good performances with high robustness for vertical plane manoeuver while effectively eliminating planning forces, exogenous disturbances and noises as well as overcoming cavitator saturations.