Tracking Control of an Underwater Robot in the Presence of Obstacles

In recent years, underwater robot has attracted more attention due to its various applications. Some of the challenges in the study of this class of robots includes nonlinear underactuated equations of motion, structured and unstructured uncertainties and dependence of the model parameters to the float velocity. One of the critical points of the study of these robots is the purpose of designing a desired control method for the trajectory tracking problem in different conditions. The sliding mode control algorithm is utilized in order to steer the mobile robot to asymptotically follow reference trajectories. A prominent feature of the proposed control algorithm is employing artificial potential function along with sliding mode algorithm to prevention of obstacle collision and intended trajectory tracking. Obtained results in different case studies indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method.