Combined trajectory tracking and path following: an application to the coordinated control of autonomous marine craft

The paper presents a solution to the problem of combined trajectory tracking and path following system design for autonomous marine craft. This problem is motivated by the practical need to develop control systems for marine craft that can yield good trajectory tracking performance while keeping some of the desired properties normally associated with path following. The solution described builds on and extends previous work by Hindman and Hauser on so-called maneuver modified trajectory tracking. An application is made to the problem of designing a control system for the coordinated operation of an autonomous surface craft (ASC) and an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Simulations with nonlinear models of an underactuated marine craft and a fully actuated underwater vehicle illustrate the performance of the control system derived.