A TSK Fuzzy Controller for Underwater Robots

Underwater robotic vehicles (URVs) have been an important tool for various underwater tasks because they have greater speed, endurance, depth capability, and safety than human divers. As the use of such vehicles increases, the vehicle control system becomes one of the most critical subsytems to increase autonomy of the vehicle. The vehicle dynamics are nonlinear and their hydrodynamic coefficients are often difficult to estimate accurately. In this paper a new type of fuzzy model-based controller based on Takagi-Sugeno-Kang fuzzy model is designed and applied to the control of of an underwater robotic vehicle. The proposed fuzzy controller : 1) is a nonlinear controller, but a linear state feedback controller in the consequent of each local fuzzy control rule ; 2) can guarantee the stability of the closed-loop fuzzy system ; 3) is relatively easy to implement. Its good performance as well as its robustness to the change of parameters have been shown and compared with the re ults of conventional linear controller by simulation.