Finite-Time Path Following Control of an Underactuated Marine Surface Vessel with Input and Output Constraints

Abstract

This paper develops a finite-time path following control scheme for an underactuated marine surface vessel (MSV) with external disturbances, model parametric uncertainties, position constraint and input saturation. Initially, based on the time-varying barrier Lyapunov function (BLF), the finite-time line-of-sight (FT-LOS) guidance law is proposed to obtain the desired yaw angle and simultaneously constrain the position error of the underactuated MSV. Furthermore, the finite-time path following constraint controllers are designed to achieve tracking control in finite time. Additionally, considering the model parametric uncertainties and external disturbances, the finite-time disturbance observers are proposed to estimate the compound disturbance. For the sake of avoiding the input saturation and satisfying the requirements of finite-time convergence, the finite-time input saturation compensators were designed. The stability analysis shows that the proposed finite-time path following control scheme can strictly guarantee the constraint requirements of the position, and all error signals of the whole control system can converge into a small neighborhood around zero in finite time. Finally, comparative simulation results show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed finite-time path following control scheme.