Most ocean vessels are underactuated but control of their motion in the real ocean environment is essential. Control of Ships and Underwater Vehicles concentrates on the control of underactuated ocean vessels both surface and submarine. Having more degrees of freedom to be controlled than the number of independent control inputs these vessels give rise to numerous challenges within the area of applied nonlinear control which are of growing concern because of their prevalence.
Starting with a review of the necessary background on ocean-vessel dynamics and nonlinear control theory, the authors’ systematic approach is based on various nontrivial coordinate transformations coupled with advanced nonlinear control design methods building on Lyapunov’s direct method, backstepping, and parameter projection techniques. This strategy is then used for the development and analysis of a number of ocean-vessel control systems with the aim of achieving advanced motion control tasks including stabilization, trajectory-tracking, path-tracking and path-following.