Adaptive setpoint control for autonomous underwater vehicles

In this paper, we propose an adaptive saturated proportional-derivative (SP-D) setpoint controller for autonomous underwater vehicles. The proposed controller does not require any knowledge of the inertia matrix, Coriolis and centripetal force, hydrodynamic damping, and parameters of the gravity and buoyancy forces. The structure of this setpoint controller is based on the SP-D feedback, plus an adaptive update law for gravity and buoyancy forces. By using Lyapunov´s direct method and LaSalle´s invariance principle, we provide simple explicit conditions on the regulator gains to ensure global asymptotic stability. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.