A DSC approach to synchronized path following of multiple underactuated AUVs with uncertain dynamics and input constrains

This paper is concerned with the synchronized path following problem of multiple underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in the presence of uncertain dynamics and input constrains. Nonlinear path following controllers are proposed for individual AUV that yield convergence of the position tracking errors to a small neighborhood of the origin. Vehicles coordination is achieved by synchronizing the along-path speed and path variables, as determined by the communications topology adopted. The proposed control design use a combination of neural network (NN), dynamic surface control (DSC) technique and an auxiliary system. The NN based DSC adaptive technique is incorporated to handle the uncertain dynamics, and simplifies the synchronized path following controllers by introducing the first-order filters. Input constrains problem is taken into account with the aid of auxiliary system design. Under the proposed controllers, uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) of the closed-loop system are guaranteed for all signals. The design procedure is illustrated through the simulation results.