A neurodynamics control strategy for real-time tracking control of autonomous underwater vehicle

How to control an AUV accurately to complete an underwater path-following task is still an open challenging problem. A biological inspired neurodynamics based tracking controller of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is proposed in this paper. The proposed control strategy includes a velocity controller with the biological neurons and an adaptive sliding mode controller. The biological neurons are embedded into the backstepping velocity controller to eliminate the sharp speed jumps commonly existing in vehicle due to tracking errors changing suddenly. The outputs of the velocity controller are used as the command inputs of the sliding mode controller, and the thrusters control constraints problem which are commonly seen in the backstepping control of AUV are overcomed by the proposed controller. Simulation results show that the control strategy achieved success in the position and velocity smoothly tracking of AUV.