Direct Inclusion of Geometric Errors for Path Maneuvering of Marine Craft

In this paper, using the idea of integrator backstepping, a dynamic controller is designed for two-dimensional path maneuvering of underactuated marine craft. The geometric errors are explicitly considered in the design procedure and convergence to the path is guaranteed. The marine craft converges to the path at the expense of sacrificing the speed assignment task when the craft moves off the path. Moreover, the unactuated dynamics is demonstrated to be globally bounded. The effectiveness of the method is verified by performing simulations.