Rapid modeling and control systems prototyping of a marine robotic vehicle with model uncertainties using xPC Target system

Rapid control systems prototyping have been used to develop controllers for numerous applications. However, most methods are constrained by programming language, embedded systems configurations, and types of operating systems used. These constraints often make the modeling, control systems design and testing difficult to accomplish, and inflexible when dealing with complex mechatronics systems such as an underwater robotic vehicle (URV) before it has been fully developed. With the proposed xPC Target platform, dynamics of the URV including the hydrodynamics parameters can be experimentally determined, simulated and validated easily with computational fluid dynamic method. The experiment with a robust sliding-mode control of the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) using the dynamic model obtained is first shown. In the pool trials, the sliding-mode controller deems to be robust enough to control the top control surface angular position despite of the uncertainties in the hydrodynamic parameters obtained and the external disturbance during pool test.

► We propose rapid control system prototyping on an underwater vehicle using xPC Target platform. ► The process allows systematic modeling, control system design and testing before implementation. ► The sliding mode controller was able to control the heading angle under the disturbances in the pool.