Design of a waypoint-tracking controller for a biomimetic-autonomous underwater vehicle

We develop a control system for the waypoint-tracking of a biomimetic-autonomous underwater vehicle (BAUV). The BAUV swims forward by oscillating its body and caudal fin and turns by slanting its body and caudal fin to the side of turning direction. Because of the undulatory motion of BAUV, we take moving averages of swimming velocity and heading error as feedback signal to control the velocity and angular velocity of BAUV. The control algorithm utilizes the oscillating frequency to control the forward speed, and a body-spline offset parameter to control the yawing rate. We verify the effectiveness of control algorithms by experiments. Finally, we discuss the stability of the control system based on a Lyapunov function.