Trajectory tracking control integrating local trajectory re-planning for autonomous underwater vehicle

This paper investigates trajectory tracking control problem for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) in presence of actuator dynamics constraints and a large initial tracking error or a sudden change in the desired trajectory. A new tracking control algorithm is developed by re-planning a new local trajectory. Based on the AUV's current position and the desired position after a certain interval, a local new trajectory is reconstructed continuously based on a cubic spline function. Moreover, the re-planned local trajectory, rather than the priori given desired trajectory, is used to calculate the control output. Finally, simulations with two trajectories are carried out on the ODIN AUV to evaluate the performance of the new method.