Output Feedback Look-ahead Position Control of Electrically Driven Fast Surface Vessels

Robust tracking control is of great importance for the surface vessels applications. This paper addresses the design of a trajectory tracking controller for fast underactuated ships in the presence of model uncertainties without velocity measurements in the yaw and surge directions. An observer-based trajectory tracking controller is proposed for the fast underactuated ship model. Then, the dynamic surface control approach is effectively exploited to propose a tracking controller considering the actuator dynamics. An adaptive robust controller is also used to compensate both the parametric and non-parametric uncertainties in the fast underactuated ship model. A Lyapunov-based stability analysis is utilised to guarantee that tracking and state estimation errors are uniformly ultimately bounded. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed controller.