Coordinated 3D Path Following for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles via Classic PID Controller

In this paper we investigate the problem of coordinated path following control of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) in 3D space. A classic PID controller is adopted to simplify the path following control design by integrating the 3D guidance law for individual AUVs. Leader-follower strategy is subsequently proposed to coordinate two underactuated AUVs flying along predefined paths in 3D space based on invariant manifold principle, where the speed of the follower is adapted in terms of the single-variant information “along-path parameter” exchanged by the leader vehicle. Simulation results of coordinated path following of underactuated AUVs in 3D space are presented and further research interests are discussed.