Adaptive Sliding Mode Trajectory Tracking Control for Unmanned Surface Vehicle with Modeling Uncertainties and Input Saturation

In the presence of modeling uncertainties and input saturation, this paper proposes a practical adaptive sliding mode control scheme for an underactuated unmanned surface vehicle (USV) using neural network, auxiliary dynamic system, sliding mode control and backstepping technique. First, the radial basis function neural network with minimum learning parameter method (MLP) is constructed to online approximate the uncertain system dynamics, which uses single parameter instead of all weights online learning, leading to a reduction in the computational burdens. Then a hyperbolic tangent function is adopted to reduce the chattering phenomenon due to the sliding mode surface. Meanwhile, the auxiliary dynamic system and the adaptive technology are employed to handle input saturation and unknown disturbances, respectively. In addition, a neural shunting model is introduced to eliminate the “explosion of complexity” problem caused by the backstepping method for virtual control derivation. The stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed by the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, simulations are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.