Joint space tracking control of underwater vehicle-manipulator systems using continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode

Abstract

To ensure satisfactory control performance for the underwater vehicle-manipulator systems, a novel continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller is proposed and investigated using time delay estimation in this article. Complex lumped unknown dynamics including the strong nonlinear couplings and external disturbance are properly compensated with time delay estimation, which are mainly based on the time-delayed signals of underwater vehicle-manipulator systems and can provide with a fascinating model-free feature. Afterwards, the satisfactory tracking control performance and good robustness under heavy lumped uncertainties are ensured using the continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode term with a fast terminal sliding mode–type reaching law. Therefore, the proposed controller is easy to use thanks to time delay estimation, and can ensure good control performance owing to continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode. Stability of the closed-loop control system is analyzed using Lyapunov stability theory, and theoretical tracking errors are calculated and presented. Finally, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed controller are demonstrated through comparative 7-degree-of-freedom pool experiments.