Control of an underactuated underwater vehicle manipulator system in the presence of parametric uncertainty and disturbance

In this paper, an underactuated underwater vehicle manipulator system (u-UVMS) carrying 6-DOF manipulator system is modeled considering hydrostatic forces and hydrodynamic effects such as added mass, lift, drag and side forces. The shadowing effects of the bodies on each other are also taken into account when computing the hydrodynamic forces. The system equations of motion are then derived using Newton-Euler formulation including the thruster dynamics. Next, an inverse dynamics control algorithm is applied for the end-effector trajectory tracking of the u-UVMS. Simulation results illustrate that the control method is applicable to underactuated systems and is effective even in the presence of parametric uncertainty and disturbing current force.