Linear Parameter Varying Adaptive Control of an Unmanned Surface Vehicle

For the investigation of unmanned surface vehicle (USV) with sudden changes in system dynamics (mass variation), an adaptive gain-scheduling control design methodology is developed in this paper. First, a linear parameter varying (LPV) control method is devised to operate a USV under variation in its overall mass. Then, an adaptive parameter estimation mechanism is designed to estimate the online information of mass variation. Finally, a LPV controller with adaptive parameter estimation and adaptation capabilities is synthesized to properly manoeuvre USV. Numerical simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results demonstrate that the proposed methodology enables USV to deal with sudden change in mass without significant deterioration in terms of system performance.