Fuzzy/Kalman hierarchical horizontal motion control of underactuated ROVs

A new closed loop fuzzy motion control system including on-line Kalman's filter (KF) for the two dimensional motion of underactuated and underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) is presented. Since the sway force is unactuated, new continuous and discrete time models are developed using a polar transformation. A new hierarchical control architecture is developed, where the high level fuzzy guidance controller generates the surge speed and the yaw rate needed to achieve the objective of planar motion, while the low level controller gives the thruster surge force and the yaw torque control signals. The Fuzzy controller ensures robustness with respect to uncertainties due to the marine environment, forward surge speed and saturation of the control signals. Also Lyapunov's stability of the motion errors is proved based on the properties of the fuzzy maps. If Inertial Measurement Unit data (IMU) is employed for the feedback directly, aleatory noises due to accelerometers and gyros damage the performances of the motion control. These noises denote a kind of non parametric uncertainty which perturbs the model of the ROV. Therefore a KF is inserted in the feedback of the control system to compensate for the above uncertainties and estimate the feedback signals with more precision.