Motion Control of a Flexible-Towed Underwater Vehicle Based on Dual-Winch Differential Tension Coordination Control

作者：Hongming Wu, Li Xiong, Kan Xu, Dong Song, Yingkai Xia, Guohua Xu · 发表于：Journal of Marine Science and Engineering · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3390/jmse13061120 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Adaptive Control of Nonlinear Systems、Dynamics and Control of Mechanical Systems、Hydraulic and Pneumatic Systems

This paper focused on the motion control of an underwater vehicle installed on a linear guide system, which is driven by two electric winches with wire ropes. The vehicle is subject to complex nonlinear time-varying disturbances and actuator input saturation effects during motion. A coupled dynamic model, incorporating an underwater vehicle, winches, and wire ropes, was established. Particular attention was paid to the nonlinear time-varying hydrodynamic disturbances acting on the underwater vehicle. The Kelvin–Voigt model was introduced to characterize the nonlinear dynamic behavior of the wire ropes, enabling the model to capture the dynamic response characteristics of traction forces. To tackle cross-coupling within the towing system, a differential tension coordination control method was proposed that simultaneously regulates system tension during motion control. For the vehicle dynamics model, a nonsingular fast-terminal sliding-mode (NFTSM) controller was designed to achieve high-precision position tracking control. An auxiliary dynamic compensator was incorporated to mitigate the impact of actuator input saturation. To handle time-varying disturbances, a fuzzy adaptive nonlinear disturbance observer (FANDO) is developed to perform feedforward compensation. Stability proof of the proposed algorithms was provided. Extensive numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the control strategies. Compared to the NFTSM without the disturbance observer the absolute me...