Path following of underactuated MSVs with model uncertainty and ocean disturbances along straight lines

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of path following for underactuated MSVs with dynamical uncertainty and time-varying ocean disturbances. The path is made up of straight-line segments connected by n waypoints. A robust adaptive path following strategy is proposed based on a LOS guidance scheme and a novel velocity controller. Specifically, the velocity controller employs an NN to identify the dynamical uncertainty and time-varying ocean disturbances. The predictor errors are utilized to construct the novel iterative updating laws for NN weights. Using a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, it is proven that the underactuated MSV is able to follow a piecewise linear path, and tracking errors converge to a small neighborhood of the origin. Simulation result is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.