Nonlinear path following with applications to the control of autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper derives a control law to steer the dynamic model of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) along a desired path. The methodology adopted for path following deals explicitly with vehicle dynamics. Furthermore, it overcomes stringent initial condition constraints that are present in a number of path following control strategies described in the literature. Controller design builds on Lyapunov theory and backstepping techniques. The resulting nonlinear feedback control law yields convergence of the path following error trajectories to zero. Simulation results illustrate the performance of the control system proposed.