A guidance-control approach applied to an autonomous underwater vehicle

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the guidance and control problem for autonomous hom- ing and docking tasks using an autonomous underwater vehicle. The tasks will play a key role in long-term underwater applications in the future. Current technology allows most vehicles capable of short-term operation. Because of limitations of energy stor- age and sensor capability, underwater vehicles considered in large networks are unable to operate continuously in completing a large task assignment for extended periods of time. To extend a large scope of the missions, autonomous homing and docking tasks are therefore required allowing a vehicle to automatically return to the docking station and then recharge its own battery and exchange data before continuing the operations. The thesis describes work towards guidance and control systems to enable a nonholo- nomic torpedo shaped underwater vehicle to perform automatic homing and docking preparation tasks. The artificial potential field and the vector field path generation methods construct the predefined trajectory by extracting position information from surrounding sensor nodes. Thus, the predefined path leads an AUV relatively close to the docking station with obstacle avoidance. With an enhanced model, the switching weighted vector field technique applies a set of varying weights. This technique shapes a trajectory which a docking preparation manoeuvre can improve.

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