Disturbance-estimation-based hierarchical sliding mode control of hovercraft with wind disturbance

This paper proposes disturbance-estimation-based hierarchical-sliding-mode tracking control method for hovercraft in the presence of wind disturbance. Both a disturbance estimator for wind disturbance that has strong uncertainty and hierarchical sliding mode tracking controller for hovercraft system are designed. This paper defines three sliding surfaces and derives all sliding surfaces converge to zero within finite time. Through the proposed method, the control performance is improved over the conventional method and compensation for the external disturbances can be possible.