3D Line Following for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

When designing guidance controllers for unmanned underwater vehicles, an assumption is often made that the vessel operates at a constant depth. However, in many applications the desired depth often changes with the position of the vessel in the horizontal plane. This paper addresses the problem of three dimensional line following with the application to underactuated underwater vehicles. The problem is resolved by separating the desired line into two components. The main contribution of this paper is the design of 3D line following controllers for underactuated underwater vehicles. The control design is based on constant controlled surge speed and a simplifi ed decoupled model of an under water vehicle. Detailed design procedure is presented. The simulation results are obtained from a complex, coupled model, which proves that the proposed algorithm can be used on real vehicles