Dynamic Model and Control of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

This manuscript presents the dynamic modeling process of an autonomous underwater vehicle considering all physical parameters related to the vehicle mass properties and geometry as well as acting hydrostatic/hydrodynamic forces & moments and the control action produced by a particular thruster configuration. Moreover, the paper introduces the LQR control algorithm implemented to fully control 4 degrees of freedom of vehicle motion simultaneously by assigning different thrust values to the vehicle thrusters to achieve stable depth control, steering angle control, roll and pitch angles' stabilization, in addition to controlling all linear and angular velocities of the vehicle relative to the body frame.