Roll suppression of marine vessels using adaptive super-twisting sliding mode control synthesis

This paper investigates roll suppression of marine vessels subjected to harmonic wave excitations. Bifurcation analysis is utilized to describe the stability range in detail where dynamical behaviors including chaos are observed under variations of control parameters. Adaptive sliding mode control with super-twisting algorithm has been introduced to reduce chattering phenomenon of control activity as well as to guarantee roll control accuracy. The stability of the complete controlled system with adaptive mechanism has been proven by Lyapunov stability theory. The key contribution of this work is to show the significant mitigation of chattering with non-overestimating gains using a novel sliding model control structure. Extensive simulation results have been provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed robust controller against exogenous disturbances. Finally, the adaptive super-twisting controller provides rapid convergence on sliding mode variables on roll motions with high accuracy, and the chattering has been considerably reduced or almost eliminated to be desired.