Adaptive attitude control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles using back-stepping

This paper gives an attitude controller design for an advanced Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) prototype by using back-stepping control strategy. The advanced AUV design driven by four water pumps has been well presented in previous publications. The nonlinear kinematic and dynamic model has been presented. The dynamic uncertainties from external disturbance and actuator dynamics has been introduced. Since the kinematics and dynamics of attitude problem are in strict feedback form, back-stepping control strategy would be capable of handling this sort of problem. Due to the propulsion method of the vehicle, only two angle channels of attitude are controllable. The self-stability of roll angle channel is ensured by the physical design and validated by the experiment