Design and simulation of X-rudder AUV's motion control

This paper addresses the problem of motion control for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) equipped with X rudder, in which all of the rudders can be operated independently. In order to offer accurate and reliable control ability, with the X rudder's character taken into consideration, one anti-normalization method based on virtual rudders and one rudder allocation including double-rudder, triple-rudder and quadruple-rudder modes are designed. Besides that, one new control ability judgment combined with traditional method and resistance energy is offered to find out the best control method. The simulations with different kinds of controllers under instantaneous and random disturbance are performed. In one simulation, one comparison with a cross-rudder AUV transformed from the test X-rudder AUV is also made. The results show that all of the designed X-rudder AUV motion control methods can complete the mission and the quadruple-rudder allocation has the best control ability.