Trajectory Tracking Control of AUVs via Adaptive Fast Nonsingular Integral Terminal Sliding Mode Control

This article aims to develop an effective control method that can improve the convergence rate over the existing adaptive nonsingular integral terminal sliding mode control (ANITSMC) method for the trajectory tracking control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). To achieve this goal, an adaptive fast nonsingular integral terminal sliding mode control (AFNITSMC) method is proposed. First, considering that the existing nonsingular integral terminal sliding mode (NITSM) has slow convergence rate in the region far from the equilibrium point, a fast NITSM (FNITSM) is proposed, which guarantees fast transient convergence both at a distance from and at a close range of the equilibrium point, and therefore increases the convergence rate over the existing NITSM. Then, using this FNITSM and adaptive technique, an AFNITSMC method is designed for AUVs. It yields local finite-time convergence of the velocity tracking errors to zero and then local exponential convergence of the position tracking errors to zero, without requiring any a priori knowledge of the upper bounds of the uncertainties and disturbances. Compared with the existing ANITSMC method, the salient feature of the proposed AFNITSMC method is that it provides AUV dynamics a faster convergence rate. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed AFNITSMC method and its superiority over the existing ANITSMC method.