Adaptive Neural Output Feedback Tracking Control of Underactuated Ships Against Uncertainties in Kinematics and System Matrices

Adaptive neural output feedback tracking control is developed for underactuated ships with uncertainties in kinematics (i.e., kinematic uncertainties) and uncertain off-diagonal terms in the matrices of their system dynamics (i.e., dynamic uncertainties), where radial basis function networks are incorporated. As the kinematic uncertainties unavoidably exist in the off-diagonal terms of system matrices and only the posture information (position variables and yaw angle) of the ship is available, the velocities should be observed and the kinematic and dynamic uncertainties should be simultaneously compensated to achieve the satisfactory ship tracking control performance. Therefore, the kinematic and dynamic uncertainties of the underactuated ship are rigorously derived. The kinematic equations with uncertainties are then derived such that the proposed nonlinear velocity observer can be used to estimate the combined velocities and kinematic uncertainties using the posture information irrespective of the ship dynamics. The dynamic uncertainties are also derived while taking into consideration the uncertainties in the system matrices. An adaptive neural uncertainty observer is then proposed to estimate the dynamic uncertainties. In this way, the proposed adaptive neural output feedback control law can compensate for the uncertainties in both the kinematics and dynamics. The estimation errors in the combined velocities and kinematic uncertainties and the dynamic uncertainties are rigorously considered in the proposed controller design. A stability analysis and the simulation results of the ship tracking control system are provided to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.