Implementation of Sliding Mode Observer Based Reconfiguration in an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

This paper looks at the implementation of a Sliding Mode Observer (SMO) based Reconfiguration algorithm to deal with sensor faults within the context of navigation controllers for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). In this paper the reconfigurability aspects are considered for the heading controller. Simulation responses are used to illustrate that the Sliding Mode Observer is able to give state information to the controller when there is a fault in the AUV’s sensor package. Comparisons are made between the Sliding Mode Controller with and without reconfigurability for a number of different sensor failures, e.g. bias errors in or the complete loss of the heading data, and the robustness of the Sliding Mode Observer is investigated through the introduction of disturbances into the system.

Keywords

• autonomous underwater vehicles
• sliding-mode control
• fault tolerance
• reconfiguration
• sliding mode observers
• environmental disturbances