A Disturbance Observer-based Novel Fuzzy SMC Control Scheme for Path Tracking of AUV with Mismatched Disturbances

A new sliding mode control scheme is proposed for the path tracking problem of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with uncertainty and mismatch interference. Considering the complexity of parameter rectification, a fuzzy logic controller-based system rectification scheme is designed in this paper. In the control system, a disturbance observer (DOB) and a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) are used to estimate the mismatch disturbance and uncertainty, respectively. In addition, this paper analyzes the conditions for the Liapunov stability of the designed controller and the results show the closed-loop stability of the control system. The control scheme can be applied to the path tracking of underwater robots with rapidly changing trajectories in different driving environments. Finally, a number of comparative experiments are carried out to demonstrate the good performance of the proposed controller.