LTVMPC for Dynamic Positioning of An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) need to keep the orientation and position in a dynamic positioning task against ocean currents. Then, a dynamic positioning controller combining linear time-varying model predictive control (LTVMPC) and integral sliding mode control (ISMC) is proposed. The LTVMPC is used to achieve optimal control considering input and output constraints, while the ISMC is adopted to reject external disturbances to improve robustness. Finally, numerical simulations validate the performance of the proposed dynamic positioning controller through a comparison with nonlinear MPC (NMPC) and LTVMPC without ISMC.