Adaptive Fault‐Tolerant Head‐Tracking Control for Nonlinear Unmanned Surface Vessels With Actuator Faults and Drift Angles

This paper focuses on the adaptive fault‐tolerant control problem for nonlinear unmanned surface vessel (USV) systems subject to disturbances, actuator faults, and drift angle. First, a unified model is proposed by integrating the Norrbin model, the drift angle dynamics, and the second‐order rudder model, aiming to provide a more comprehensive and accurate description of USV dynamic behavior. The corresponding parameters are estimated using data from the “Qingshan” vessel. To address the challenges of coupled time‐varying disturbances, actuator faults, and drift angles in the proposed system, an adaptive backstepping control algorithm is designed. The dynamic surface control scheme is introduced to reduce the computational complexity typically associated with traditional backstepping methods. The Nussbaum function technique is used to compensate for the degradation of control performance caused by actuator faults, thereby enhancing the robustness and stability of the USV heading tracking control system. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted based on the established unified model. The results demonstrate that the proposed adaptive controller achieves exceptional performance.