ON SPATIAL TRAJECTORY PLANNING & OPEN-LOOP CONTROL FOR UNDERACTUATED AUVs

This paper considers the problem of spatial planning and open-loop control for underactuated AUVs. Given a smooth inertial 3D trajectory to be followed by some vehicle point, the developed algorithm uses the vehicle dynamic model, and computes the 3D corresponding body-fixed linear and angular velocities as well as vehicle orientations, yielding a feasible 6 DOF trajectory. The design of tracking controllers is then facilitated by using this trajectory, which is consistent with AUV dynamics. The full 6 DOF computed trajectory is further used to compute the efforts for the three available control inputs and to result in an open-loop trajectory controller.