Formation control of a group of AUVs using adaptive high order sliding mode controller

Abstract

Formation control of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) team based on adaptive high order sliding mode is studied in the paper. First, the kinematics control law is given based on the guidance function. Then, as sliding mode controller (SMC) is widely used in motion control of underwater vehicles, a robust and continuous controller using high order sliding mode method is proposed to achieve leader-follower path-tracking in formation under the presence of bounded disturbances acting on each AUV in the formation. An adaptive strategy based on high order sliding mode controller is developed to deal with the system chattering problem. This strategy combines adaptive controller and high order SMC together. The proposed method removes the chattering phenomenon by substituting an adaptive continuous term for the switching term in the controller. The controller is chattering-free and handles the ocean current disturbance. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.