Disturbance observer based adaptive heading control for unmanned surface vehicle with event‐triggered and signal quantization

Summary This article delves into the adaptive heading tracking control of unmanned surface vehicle (USV) by incorporating an event‐triggered mechanism and signal quantization. The primary objective is to save communication resources while alleviating the burden of signal transmission. To address time‐varying external perturbations inherent in the control system, a disturbance observer is employed for precise estimation. Additionally, a linear model is introduced to delineate the procedure of quantization. By furnishing the controller with purpose‐designed quantized control input, the adaptive tracking control system can effectively track desired input without requiring any prior knowledge of the quantized parameters. The article substantiates its claims by demonstrating the system's stability in the absence of quantization considerations and the bounded nature of quantization errors through a series of presented lemmas. Further, the stability of the USV heading control system, integrated with an event‐triggered mechanism and signal quantization, is proofed in accordance with Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, the proposed strategy's efficacy and practical applicability are validated through experimental simulations.