Trajectory Tracking Design of Autonomous Surface Vessels with Multiple Perturbations: A Robust Adaptive Fuzzy Approach

To achieve robust trajectory tracking performance for autonomous surface vessels (ASVs), a robust adaptive fuzzy control (RAFC) scheme is proposed. The trajectory tracking problem of ASVs is addressed through a unified control framework that integrates a nonlinear controller with an adaptive fuzzy estimator. In this framework, a nonlinear transformation is employed to first generate the trajectory tracking error dynamics, and then the adaptive fuzzy estimator is utilized to accurately estimate the effects of multiple ocean perturbations. This unified design ensures both robustness and high-precision trajectory tracking for the controlled ASVs. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, two challenging simulation scenarios are investigated. The simulation results demonstrate the superior control performance and robustness of the proposed approach.