Velocity tracking controller for simulation analysis of underwater vehicle model

A method for dynamics analysis of underwater vehicles is presented in this paper. The strategy consists of two stages. At the first stage, we propose an adaptive velocity tracking controller for the vehicle. The control algorithm is expressed in terms of transformed equations of motion in which the inertia matrix is diagonal. Consequently, it takes into account the dynamics of the system and it can be applied for fully actuated systems in the presence of disturbances and uncertain dynamics. Using this controller, we are able to track the velocity, and also at the same time, to evaluate some dynamic properties of the vehicle. At the second stage, we give some procedure for the dynamics analysis. The advantage of the approach is that the algorithm serves simultaneously for control purposes and dynamics investigation. It can be done before real experiment which is always expensive and time consuming. The effectiveness of the strategy is validated via simulation on a full 6-DOFs underwater vehicle model.