Adaptive formation control of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper presents a formation controller for desired formation of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). We design the controller under the assumptions that the mass and damping matrices are not diagonal and that hydrodynamic damping terms are unknown. Since underactuated AUVs have no independent actuators in the sway direction, stability of the sway dynamics has been proved separately. To solve this problem, we introduce an additional control input and prove the stability using the Lyapunov stability theory. Moreover, unlike previous researches, we propose a new approach angle that requires only position information without using velocity data. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.