Path following of underactuated surface vessels based on neural sliding mode

In order to realize path following control for underactuated surface vessels under parameter perturbation and external disturbances, a neural sliding mode controller is presented based on visible distance. The desired position and the current position are used to determine the reference surge velocity and yawing angle by using visible distance, which are employed as the virtual control laws in stabilizing the position errors. Then, a new nonlinear feedback robust controller is designed based on neural network and sliding modes to realize the tracking control of the virtual control laws without determining upper bound of parameter perturbation and external disturbances. The problem of saturation and chattering of the controller are circumvented. The results of simulation experiments indicate that the controller is robust against parameter perturbation and external disturbances. Moreover, the path following control with can be achieved by the proposed control method.