Fish lateral line inspired hydrodynamic feedforward control for autonomous underwater vehicles

Studies have shown that the lateral line found in most fish and some other aquatic organisms is capable of providing hydrodynamic information of the surrounding fluid, which may facilitate many behavioral decisions. Previous work by the group introduced a lateral line inspired feedforward design for underwater vehicle control. The system utilizes pressure sensor arrays to estimate the hydrodynamic force acting on the vehicle such that the additional information will simplify the modeling process and improve the maneuvering accuracy for the control tasks in underwater exploration and environmental monitoring. In this paper, the feedforward control design is presented and tested in simulation for trajectory tracking and path following after expressing the force estimation algorithm in the three-dimensional domain. Pressure measurements at multiple locations on the vehicle surface form a least squares approximation of the pressure distribution. Hydrodynamic forces acting on the vehicle are then estimated and passed to the controller for improved performance. Preliminary experimental tests are conducted to vindicate the proposed algorithm.