Nonlinear Dyn

DOI 10.1007/s11071-014-1431-0

ORIGINAL PAPER

Second-order sliding-mode controller for autonomous

underwater vehicle in the presence of unknown disturbances
Hangil Joe Minsung Kim Son-cheol Yu

Received: 28 December 2013 / Accepted: 21 April 2014

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract We propose the use of a second-order

sliding-mode controller (2-SMC) to stabilize an
autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) which is subject to modeling errors and often suffers from unknown
environmental disturbances. The 2-SMC is effective
in compensating for the uncertainties in the hydrodynamic and hydrostatic parameters of the vehicle
and rejecting the unpredictable disturbance effects due
to ocean waves, tides, and currents. The 2-SMC is
comprised of an equivalent controller and a switching controller to suppress the parameter uncertainties and external disturbances, and its closed-loop system is exponentially stable in the presence of parameter uncertainties and unknown disturbances. We performed numerical simulations to validate the proposed
control approach, and experimental tests using Cyclops
AUV were conducted to demonstrate its practical feasibility. The proposed controller increased the accuracy
of trajectory tracking for an AUV in the presence of
uncertain hydrodynamics and unknown disturbances.

H. Joe M. Kim S. Yu (B)

The Department of Creative IT Engineering, POSTECH,
Pohang, Kyungbuk, Republic of Korea
e-mail: sncyu@postech.ac.kr
H. Joe
e-mail: roboticist@postech.ac.kr
M. Kim
e-mail: redtoss@postech.ac.kr

Keywords Hovering-type underwater vehicle

4-degree of freedom model Uncertain nonlinear
system

1 Introduction
Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have been
increasingly used for a variety of tasks in underwater environments including geological survey and data
collection. For underwater surveys using AUVs, precise control is very important because the quality of
data obtained is highly dependent on the vehicles control accuracy in station-keeping and trajectory tracking.
However, control of an AUV is difficult due to coupled
nonlinearities, parameter uncertainties resulting from
the lack knowledge of hydrodynamic coefficients, and
external disturbances such as waves and currents.
Considerable research has been conducted to address
these problems, and various robust control strategies
have been proposed for an AUV. These include a
PID controller [1] and multivariable sliding-mode controller (SMC) for steering, diving, and speed control
[2]; a decoupled PD and variable-structure PID controllers [3,4]; the SMC for tracking control [5]; a
second-order SMC (2-SMC) [6,7]; an output-feedback
2-SMC [8]; a full-order H controller [9,10]; an H
controller to decrease the coupling between pitch and
yaw motion [11]; and backstepping and sliding-mode
techniques [12,13].

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H. Joe et al.

In this paper, we propose the use of 2-SMC for

an AUV in the presence of hydrodynamic uncertainties and unknown disturbances. Among the aforementioned controllers, the 2-SMC is employed for an underwater vehicle (UV) prototype in [8], in which performance improvements in their transient response were
shown. The proposed 2-SMC differs from these of
[8] in that the performance improvements in steadystate response under hydrodynamic uncertainties and
unknown disturbances were shown. Furthermore, the
2-SMC was tested for the UV prototype with surge
motion only in [8], but the proposed controller was
applied for the real AUV with 4-dimensional motion.
The proposed controller consists of three components:
a linear controller keeps the closed-loop system within
a uniform bound; a nonlinear cancelation term cancels
the nonlinear part of the AUV dynamics, and a switching controller compensates for a steady-state error and
suppresses the remaining bias term. We proved that the
2-SMC stabilizes the AUVs motion under hydrodynamic uncertainties and unknown disturbances. Then,
we performed numerical simulations to test SMC, and
the proposed 2-SMCs without and with switching controller in surge, sway, and heave. Finally, experimental
tests were conducted to demonstrate its practical feasibility.
This paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2, the
AUV modeling is derived. In Sect. 3, the proposed controller is presented and the stability of the closed-loop
system is derived. In Sect. 4, the computer simulation
results are shown. Experimental setup and results are
presented in Sect. 5. Finally, conclusion is drawn in
Sect. 6.

2 System modeling
2.1 AUV modeling
The motion of the AUV can be described using a
body frame relative to a navigation frame (Fig. 1). The
body frame is composed of the AUVs linear velocities
[u v w] and angular velocities [ p q r ]. The navigation
frame is composed of the AUVs positions [x y z] and
orientation [ ]. In this paper, we neglect roll and
pitch motions, and consider only horizontal and vertical motions that correspond to the linear velocities
[u v w], the angular velocity [r ], the position [x y z],
and the orientation []. The 4-DOF model was pre-

123

Fig. 1 The navigation and body frames. Variables are defined in

the text

sented in [14], and the hydrodynamics of the AUV is

described as
= m v v(t)r (t) ku u(t)
m u u(t)
ku|u| u(t)|u(t)| + Fu (t),

(1)

= m u u(t)r (t) kv v(t)

m v v(t)
kv|v| v(t)|v(t)| + Fv (t),

(2)

= kw w(t) kw|w| w(t)|w(t)|

m w w(t)
+ Fw (t) + W (t),

(3)

Ir r (t) = (m v m u )u(t)v(t) kr r (t)

kr |r |r (t)|r (t)| + Tr (t),

(4)

where u(t), v(t), and w(t) are the linear velocities

in surge, sway, and heave motions; r (t) is the rotational velocity in yaw motion; m u , m v , and m w are the
masses including hydrodynamic added masses in surge,
sway, and heave motions; Ir is the moment of inertia in
yaw motion; ku /ku|u| , kv /kv|v| , kw /kw|w| , and kr /kr |r |
are uncertain linear/quadratic damping coefficients in
surge, sway, heave, and yaw motions; Fu (t), Fv (t), and
Fw (t) are the external forces acting on the vehicle in
surge, sway, and heave motions; Tr (t) is the external
torque acting on the vehicle in yaw motion; and W (t)
is buoyancy force in heave motion.
The kinematics of the AUV is described as
x(t)
= u(t) cos (t) v(t) sin (t),

(5)

y (t) = u(t) sin (t) + v(t) cos (t),

(6)

z (t) = w(t),

(t)
= r (t),

(7)
(8)

where x(t), y(t), and z(t) are the positions in surge,

sway, and heave, respectively, and (t) is yaw angle.

2-SMC for AUV

3 Controller design
Each motion in surge and sway is coupled with the
motion in yaw. In this paper, we design the controller
in surge and sway in conjunction with an autopilot for
heading control, so we can assume that (t)  c
and r (t)  0; c is constant. In addition, parameters in
hydrodynamics are uncertain and external disturbances
in hydrodynamics exist.
Considering (t)  c and r (t)  0, the hydrodynamic parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances, we can rewrite the dynamic system (1)(8) as
x 1 (t) = J(c )x2 (t),
x 2 (t) = A(x2 (t)) + BF(t) + D(t),

(9)
(10)

where x1 (t) = [x(t) y(t) z(t)]T and x2 (t) = [u(t) v(t)

w(t)]T denote the positions and velocities of the AUV,
respectively,

cos c sin c 0
J(c ) = sin c cos c 0 ,
0
0
1

(11)

A(x2 (t)) = diag(A1 (x2 (t)) A2 (x2 (t)) A3 (x2 (t))), B =

diag(B1 B2 B3 ), F(t) = [Fu (t) Fv (t) Fw (t)]T presents
the control input, D(t) = [D1 (t) D2 (t) D3 (t)]T is
the lumped uncertainty; A1 (x2 (t)) = mkuu u(t)
k
A2 (x2 (t)) = mkvv v(t) mv|v|
v(t)|v(t)|,
v
kw|w|
kw
A3 (x2 (t)) = m w w(t) m w w(t)|w(t)|, B1 = m1u ,
B2 = m1v , B3 = m1w are nominal system parameters,

after a finite time, and thereby the error variable moves

on the prescribed error dynamics. To get a better feel for
2-SMC, we start with choosing the sliding surface of the
first-order SMC, which is well known for its robustness
to hydrodynamic parameter uncertainties and external
disturbances [15,16]. The first-order sliding surface is
defined as s(t) = [s1 (t) s2 (t) s3 (t)]T , where


d n1
si (t) = i +
ei (t),
dt

(13)

where n denotes order of uncontrolled system; e1 (t) =

xr (t) x(t), e2 (t) = yr (t) y(t), and e3 (t) =
zr (t)z(t) represent the tracking errors; i is a positive
constant for all i = 1, 2, 3; and xr (t), yr (t), and zr (t)
are the reference positions in surge, sway, and heave,
respectively.
Considering the robustness against the hydrodynamic parameter uncertainties and disturbances, 2SMC achieves a zero steady-state error by adding the
integral term to the right side of (13), and reduces the
chattering phenomenon by increasing the order of the
sliding surface in (13). The resulting second-order sliding surface is given as [18,19]:
t
si (t) + i si (t) = k pi (t)ei (t)+kii

ei ( )d +kdi e(t),

(14)

ku|u|
m u u(t)|u(t)|,

and

Di (t) = Di (x2 (t), W (t), d(t))

(12)

for all i = 1, 2, 3, where d(t) is unknown external

disturbance.
The lumped uncertainty D(t) can degrade the control performance and even cause the system to become
unstable. To overcome this problem, we propose 2SMC in the following section.

where k pi , kii , kdi , and i are positive constants, for all

i = 1, 2, 3; i determines the rate of decay for si (t).
Because we choose the second-order sliding surface,
we can determine the control law. To do this, we first
set the system order n = 2 and take the derivative on
both sides of (14) with respect to time. Then, we have
s(t) + s(t) = Kp e (t) + Ki e(t) + Kd e (t),

(15)

where e(t) = x1r (t) x1 (t) = [e1 (t) e2 (t) e3 (t)]T ,

= diag(1 2 3 ), Kp = diag(k p1 k p2 k p3 ), Ki =
diag(ki1 ki2 ki3 ), and Kd = diag(kd1 kd2 kd3 ); x1r (t) =
[xr (t) yr (t) zr (t)]T . Substituting (9) and (10) into (15)
yields

3.1 Second-order sliding-mode controller

The main idea of 2-SMC is to constrain an AUV system
to reach and stay on both a sliding surface s(t) and the
first time-derivative of the surface s(t); s(t) = s(t) = 0

s(t) + s(t) = Kp e (t) + Ki e(t)

+ Kd (x1r (t) J(c )(A(x2 (t))
+ BF(t) + D(t))).

(16)

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H. Joe et al.

Let the equivalent control law be

Feq (t) = (Kd J(c )B)1 (Kp e (t) + Ki e(t) s(t))
+ (J(c )B)1 (x1r (t) J(c )A(x2 (t))),
(17)
where Kp , Ki , and Kd are chosen such that the polynomial Kd e (t) + Kp e (t) + Ki e(t) becomes a Hurwitz
polynomial. Applying the control law (17) into (16)
yields the resulting error dynamics

F(t) = Feq (t) + Fsw (t)

s(t) = Kd e (t) + Kp e (t) + Ki e(t)

= Kd J(c )D(t), |(Kd J(c )D(t))i | < D i ,
(18)
where D i is the upper bound of the bias term Kd J(c )
D(t) for all i = 1, 2, 3. If the bias term becomes zero,
we obtain the ideal error dynamics
s(t) = Kd e (t) + Kp e (t) + Ki e(t) = 0.

(19)

However, Kd J(c )D(t) prevents the tracking error e

from being zero. To suppress this bias term, we adopt
the switching control input by using a twisting algorithm [17] as follows
Fsw (t) = (Kd J()B)1 (Ksw1 sgn(s(t))
+ Ksw2 sgn(s(t))),

(20)

s(t)) + (J(c )B)1 (x1r (t)

J(c )A(x2 (t)))
+ (Kd J()B)1 (Ksw1 sgn(s(t))
+ Ksw2 sgn(s(t))).

(22)

This control scheme (Fig. 2) consists of three elements.

The feedback term (Kd J(c )B)1 (Kp e (t) + Ki e(t)
s(t)) makes the closed-loop system stable within a
uniform error bound. The term B1 (J1 (c )x1r (t)
A(x2 (t))) compensates for the nonlinear part of the system. The switching input (Kd J()B)1 (Ksw1 sgn(s(t))
+ Ksw2 sgn(s(t))) suppresses the bias term D(t).

To prove the stability of the closed-loop system, we

first substitute (22) into (16). Then, we obtain
s(t) = Kd J(c )D(t) Ksw1 sgn(s(t)) Ksw2 sgn(s(t))

(Kd J(c )D(t))1 ksw11 sgn(s1 (t)) ksw21 sgn(s1 (t))

= (Kd J(c )D(t))2 ksw12 sgn(s2 (t)) ksw22 sgn(s2 (t)) .
(Kd J(c )D(t))3 ksw13 sgn(s3 (t)) ksw23 sgn(s3 (t))

(23)
(21)

where x is a scalar variable.

Combining the equivalent and switching control
laws yields the complete control law

123

= (Kd J(c )B)1 (Kp e (t) + Ki e(t)

3.2 Stability

where Ksw1 = diag(ksw11 ksw12 ksw13 ), Ksw2 = diag

(ksw21 ksw22 ksw23 ), sgn(s(t)) = [sgn(s1 (t)) sgn(s2 (t))
sgn(s3 (t))]T ; ksw1i and ksw2i are positive constants,
ksw1i ksw2i + D i , ksw2i D i for all i = 1, 2, 3,
and the signum function sgn(.) is defined as

1 if x < 0
sgn(x) 0
if x = 0

1
if x > 0,

Fig. 2 The schematic diagram of AUV control system

Let y1 (t) = si (t), y2 (t) = si (t), (t) = (Kd J(c )

D(t))i , and
(t) = ksw1i sgn(si (t)) ksw2i sgn(si (t))
for i = 1, 2, 3. Each row in (23) can be described as
follows:
y1 (t) = y2 (t),
y2 (t) = (t) +
(t).

(24)

2-SMC for AUV

The remaining proof is similar to that of theorem 3

In this stage, defining V (t) as the summation of
in [17]. A Lyapunov function candidate Vi (t) for the
Vi (t), and differentiating the Lyapunov function V (t)
closed-loop system (24) is chosen as
with respect to time yields

2

2

y2 (t)sgn(y1 (t))
y2 (t)2
k

2
+ k0 |y1 (t)| + 2
if y1 (t)y2 (t) = 0

(25)
Vi (t) = 2
if y1 (t) = 0
k y2 (t)2 /4

|y1 (t)|/4
if y2 (t) = 0,
where Vi (t) > 0 for y1 (t) = 0, y2 (t) = 0, and =
ksw1i + ksw2i sgn(y1 (t)y2 (t)) D i (t)sgn(y1 (t)y2 (t)).
and k0 are positive constants, and are set to remove
k, k,
the discontinuities of the Lyapunov function candidate
at y1 (t) = 0 and y2 (t) = 0. Differentiating Vi (t) with
respect to time yields

dVi (t)
Vi (t)
Vi (t)
=
y1 (t) +
y2 (t)
dt
y1 (t)
y2 (t)

 21


1
y2 (t)2
sgn(y1 (t)) y2 (t)
= k Vi (t) k0 |y1 (t)| +
2
2 (t)

 
sgn(y1 (t))
+ k Vi (t)
(t)

 21

y2 (t)
y2 (t)2
1
+ k0 |y1 (t)| +
y2 (t)
2
2 (t)
(t)


(t)
= k Vi (t)
(t)



(t)
k0 sgn(y1 (t)y2 (t))
(t)

+
1
, (26)
2
4|y1 (t)|/y2 (t)2 + 2/ (t) (t)

where (t) = ksw1i + ksw2i sgn(y1 (t)y2 (t)) (t)

sgn(y1 (t)).
Because (t)
(t) 1 for y1 (t)y2 (t) > 0 and
ksw1i ksw2i D i (t)
ksw1i ksw2i + D i (t)

(t)
+
(t)

(t)
(t)

1 for y1 (t)y2 (t) < 0,

k0 sgn(y1 (t)y2 (t))

(t)

2
4|y1 (t)|/y2 (t)2 + 2/ (t)

ksw1i ksw2i D i (t)

ksw1i ksw2i + D i (t)
> 0.


(t)
1
(t)

(27)

Then (26) becomes

ksw1i ksw2i D i (t) 
Vi (t)
Vi (t) kmin
ksw1i ksw2i + D i (t)

Vi (t),
where kmin is the minimum value of k.

(28)

V (t) = V1 (t) + V2 (t) + V3 (t)




( V1 (t) + V2 (t) + V3 (t))


V1 (t) + V2 (t) + V3 (t) V (t).
(29)
Therefore, the state trajectory reaches the surface
s(t) = s(t) = 0 in a finite time T f and remains there
despite the bias term [26]. The condition s(t) = s(t) =
0 means that s(t) = 0 for all t > T f . Because s(t) = 0,
e(t) moves on the following error dynamics
Kd e (t) + Kp e (t) + Ki e(t) = 0.

(30)

Because Kp , Ki , and Kd are chosen such that the polynomial Kd e (t) + Kp e (t) + Ki e(t) becomes a Hurwitz
polynomial, e(t) is exponentially stable.
Remark 1 The conventional sliding-mode controller
has steady-state error when the AUV suffers from
constant disturbances such as currents and buoyancy.
The steady-state error can be eliminated by the integral term in the 2-SMC scheme. However, the integral
action may degrade the transient response by increasing its oscillation. Moreover, the integral windup phenomenon occurs when the integral action is used
in a system in which the actuator is saturated. The
integral windup may cause significant overshoot that
requires a long time for recovery. To reduce these
errors, we turn on the integral action only when the
norm of tracking errors is lower than a predetermined
value.
Remark 2 The switching control action in (31) may
cause chattering due to delay and the imperfection of
the switching device. Chattering results in wear-andtear on the thrusters so that the system can be damaged
in a short time. To reduce the chattering, we replace

123

H. Joe et al.

the signum function in (31) with a hyperbolic tangent

function:
Fsw (t) = (Kd J()B)1 (Ksw1 tanh(1
1 s(t))
+ Ksw2 tanh(1
2 s (t))),

(31)

s1 (t)
s2 (t)
where tanh(1
1 s(t)) = [tanh( 11 ) tanh( 12 )tanh

s1 (t)
s2 (t)
)]T , tanh(1
( s3 (t)
2 s (t)) = [tanh( 21 ) tanh( 22 )
13

)]T ; 1 = diag(11 12 13 ) and 2 =

tanh( s3 (t)
23
diag(21 22 23 ) denote the thickness of boundary
layers; 1i and 2i are positive constants for all i =
1, 2, 3.

Remark 3 2-SMC has been applied to an electromechanical system [18], a chaotic system [20], and a
complex network [21]. The proposed controller structure is similar to these controllers, but differs in that
the coordinate transformation matrix is added during the control input derivation procedure. Moreover,
compared to electro-mechanical, chaotic, and network
systems, the AUV system is more difficult to control
because it experiences system uncertainties as well as
large unknown disturbances such as waves, tides, currents, and buoyancy.
Remark 4 Position-tracking controller and current
observer were developed to control an AUV in the
presence of unknown ocean currents in the horizontal plane [22]. That controller was based on Lyapunov
theory and backstepping technique. Compared to that
controller, proposed controller is simpler and easier to
implement.
Remark 5 Adaptive fuzzy controllers [2325] can be
applied to the AUV system. These controllers can estimate and compensate the unknown parameters in AUV
so that they can precisely control the AUV system.
However, in practice, it is difficult to choose an appropriate learning gain to estimate the unknown parameters.

4 Simulation
To demonstrate the feasibility of the developed controller, we conducted various computer simulations

123

with a model of the Cyclops AUV (Fig. 9). The controller parameters can be determined based on the parameter values of Cyclops (Table 3). Undetermined parameters are the gains of SMC and 2-SMC. A heuristic method was used to obtain these gains; the values obtained were i = 4, i = 0.5, ksw1i = 10
for SMC, k pi = 4, kii = 4, kdi = 1, i = 2,
ksw1i = 10, ksw2i = 5, 1i = 0.5, 2i = 0.5
for 2-SMC for all i = 1, 2, 3. For simplicity, we set
c = 0. We varied the linear/quadratic drag coefficients by 20 % from their true values for AUV
model. We added sinusoidal disturbances (e.g., waves)
with 10-N amplitude and 0.13-Hz frequency, and constant disturbances (e.g., currents) with 1-N amplitude
to surge and sway motions, uniformly distributed random signals with 10-N amplitude to surge, sway, and
heave motions, and constant disturbance (e.g., buoyancy) with 5-N amplitude to heave motion. Finally,
we set the sampling period to 100 ms and simulated this control scheme for 150 s using Matlab software.
Under the above settings and step input command,
we applied SMC, and 2-SMCs without and with switching controller (Figs. 4, 6, and 8). 2-SMC without the
switching controller is comprised of PD and feedback linearization controllers. We tested these controllers not for 3-dimensional motions but for each
motion, because the controllers are designed to be
decoupled with regard to 3-dimensional motions. In
surge and sway, 2-SMC without switching controller
worked poorly, because PD controllers in the 2-SMC
without the switching controller cannot reject the fast
sinusoidal disturbance. However, SMCs and 2-SMCs
with switching controller worked well (Figs. 3, 5),
because the switching controller can reject fast sinusoidal disturbance. In heave, 2-SMC without and SMC
with switching controller have a small steady-state
error due to the buoyancy force, but it can be eliminated because the 2-SMC with switching controller is
used (Fig. 7).
To show the accuracy of the proposed controller
quantitatively, we examined the root-mean square
(rms) error of the command input responses in surge,
sway, and heave (Table 1). 2-SMC with switching controller showed smaller rms error in steady state than
2-SMC without switching controller.

2-SMC for AUV

Fig. 3 Command input
response in surge without
and with the switching
controller

12

10

Distance (cm)

8
2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback Linearization)

2SMC with
switching controller

SMC with
switching controller

25

50

75

100

125

150

Time (s)

Fig. 4 Controller input in

surge

150

Controller input (N)

100
2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback Linearization)

2SMC with
switching controller

SMC with
switching controller

50

50

100

25

50

75

100

125

150

Time (s)

Fig. 5 Command input

response in sway without
and with the switching
controller

12

10

Distance (cm)

8
2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback Linearization)

2SMC with
switching controller

SMC with
switching controller

25

50

75

100

125

150

Time (s)

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H. Joe et al.
Fig. 6 Controller input in
sway

300

Controller input (N)

200
2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback Linearization)

2SMC with
switching controller

SMC with
switching controller

100

100

25

50

75

100

125

150

Time (s)

Fig. 7 Command input

response in heave without
and with the switching
controller

12

10

Distance (cm)

8
2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback Linearization)

2SMC with
switching controller

SMC with
switching controller

25

50

75

100

125

150

Time (s)

Fig. 8 Controller input in

heave

300

250

Controller input (N)

200
2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback Linearization)

150

2SMC with
switching controller

SMC with
switching controller

100

50

50

25

50

75

Time (s)

123

100

125

150

2-SMC for AUV

Table 1 Rms errors at steady-state
Controller

Surge

Sway

Heave

2-SMC without

4.2 103

2.5 103

2.3 103

SMC with

1.1 103

6.2 104

5.6 104

2-SMC with

5.2 104

104

1.8 104

3.2

5 Experiment
5.1 Experimental setup
To demonstrate the feasibility of the developed controller, it was applied to Cyclops (Fig. 9), an AUV
developed at Hazardous Environmental Robotics
Laboratory at the Pohang University of Science and
Technology (POSTECH).
Cyclops measures 1477 868 920 mm and
weighs 219.8 kg. Two batteries are attached to its bottom and a buoyancy sheet is attached to its top. A cylinder to contain the electric system is located at its center. Cyclops is equipped with two thrusters for surge
motion, two thrusters for heave motion, four thrusters

for sway and yaw motion, a Doppler velocity log for

measuring AUV positions and velocities, a fiber-optic
gyro unit for measuring heading and yaw rate, and a
digital pressure transducer for measuring the AUVs
depth.
Cyclops includes an internal computer system
(Fig. 10; Table 2) connected to an external computer.
The internal computer system consists of two PC104
modules, i.e., a main module and a sub module. Both
modules use the Windows XP operating system. The
main module functions as a control tower; this module receives the sensor data from submodule and sends
the control signal to the thrusters. It also sends all
input/output signals of electric components in Cyclops
to the external computer system to allow it to monitor
the status of Cyclops. The PC104 submodule receives
the sensor data and relays them to the main PC104 module. The developed controller was programmed using
Visual Studio 2008 in the external computer system
and downloaded to the main module in Cyclops. The
controller runs at sampling interval T = 100 ms.
Motion control test was conducted in the engineering basin in Korea Institute of Robotics and Convergence at POSTECH, in conjunction with the autopilot

Fig. 9 The structure of

Cyclops underwater vehicle

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H. Joe et al.
Fig. 10 The configuration
of Cyclops

Table 2 The specification of Cyclops

Specification

Value

Maximum speed

2 knots

Maximum operating time

2h

Maximum operating depth

100 m

Actuators

8 thrusters with 475-W dc motors

Batteries

Two Li-Po (24 V, 600 W h)

Computer system

Two PC104 modules

(Pentium 4 1.4 GHz)

Sensors

Doppler velocity log (1.2 MHz),

Fiber-optic gyroscope,
Digital pressure transducer,

Fig. 11 Cyclops in the engineering basin

Imaging sonar (1.1/1.8 MHz),

Profiling sonar,
Still camera and flash gun,
Two pan-tilt cameras

for heading control (Fig. 11). The engineering basin

measures about 12 8 6 m. It is not equipped with
a wave generator, so we cannot test the developed controller under the environment with the wave and current

123

disturbances. The only existing disturbance in the engineering basin is the buoyancy force. Therefore, among
surge, sway, and heave motions, only the heave motion
control test was conducted.
The control parameters were determined based on
actual measurements (Table 3). Undetermined parameters are the gains of SMC and 2-SMC. A heuristic method was used to obtain these gains; the values
obtained were 3 = 1.5, 3 = 0.1, ksw13 = 0.12

2-SMC for AUV

Table 3 The parameter values of Cyclops
Parameter

Definition

Value
920 mm

Height of cyclops

ku

Linear drag coefficient in surge

16

kv

Linear drag coefficient in sway

131.8

kw

Linear drag coefficient in heave

65.6

ku|u|

Quadratic drag coefficient in surge

229.4

kv|v|

Quadratic drag coefficient in sway

328.3

kw|w|

Quadratic drag coefficient in heave

296.8

Length of cyclops

1,477 mm

Weight of cyclops in air

219.8 kg

mu

Mass of cyclops in surge

391.5 kg

mv

Mass of cyclops in sway

639.6 kg

mw

Mass of cyclops in heave

639.6 kg

Width of cyclops

868 mm

Buoyancy force in heave

2.5 N

for SMC, k p3 = 0.9, ki3 = 0.16, kd3 = 1, 3 = 1,

ksw13 = 0.08, ksw23 = 0.08, 13 = 0.1, 23 = 0.1
for 2-SMC with step input command, and 3 = 1.5,
3 = 0.1, ksw13 = 0.12 for SMC, k p3 = 1, ki3 = 0.16,
kd3 = 1, 3 = 1, ksw13 = 0.1, ksw23 = 0.08,
13 = 0.1, 23 = 0.1 for 2-SMC with sinusoidal
input command. In the engineering basin test, hydrodynamic uncertainty exists, but it is much smaller than
we set in the Matlab simulation, so we set the switching
control gain ksw13 ksw23 . For simplicity, we also set
c = 0.
Direct use of s(t) in (22) degraded the control
performance in the engineering basin test. We divided
Fig. 12 Step input response
in heave

s(t) by 1 to decrease the effect with 1 = 8. Even

though we use 1 s(t) instead of s(t) in (22), the stability can be guaranteed because the switching controller
suppresses the remaining term.

5.2 Experimental results

To demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed controller, we investigated the regulation and trajectory
tracking problems in experiments using Cyclops AUV.
Under the above parameter settings, we first applied
the proposed controller to Cyclops AUV with step
input command (zr (t) = 1 m). We applied 2-SMC
without the switching controller for the first 50 s, and
applied SMC with the switching controller from 50 to
100 s. Afterward, we applied 2-SMC with the switching controller. The 2-SMC without and SMC with the
switching controller could not compensate for the constant disturbance such as buoyancy force, but the 2SMC with the switching controller compensated for the
constant disturbance, thereby reducing the steady-state
error in heave (Fig. 12). Variations of control inputs
vary over time (Fig. 13).
To test the tracking performance of the closedloop system with proposed controller, we applied it to
Cyclops AUV with sinusoidal input as
zr (t) =



2 t
1 1
cos
.
2 2
100

(32)

We also applied 2-SMC without switching controller

for the first 200 s, and applied SMC with the switch-

1.2

1.0

Distance (m)

0.8
2SMC with
switching
controller

SMC with
switching
controller

2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback
Linearization)

0.6

0.4

0.2

25

50

75

100

125

150

Time (s)

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H. Joe et al.
Fig. 13 Control input in
heave when the step input
command is applied

Control input (N)

10

25

2SMC with
switching
controller

SMC with
switching
controller

2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback
Linearization)

50

75

100

125

150

500

600

500

600

Time (s)

Fig. 14 Sinusoidal input

response in heave

1.4
2SMC with
switching
controller

SMC with
switching
controller

2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback
Linearization)

1.2

Distance (m)

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

100

200

300

400

Time (s)

Fig. 15 Control input in

heave when the sinusoidal
input command is applied

15

Control input (N)

10

2SMC with
switching
controller

SMC with
switching
controller

2SMC without
switching controller
(PD+Feedback
Linearization)

10

100

200

300

Time (s)

123

400

2-SMC for AUV

ing controller from 200 to 400 s. Afterward, we

applied 2-SMC with the switching controller. Similar
to the results in the regulation problem, the position
of Cyclops tracked the sinusoidal input command in
heave only when 2-SMC with switching controller was
applied (Fig. 14). Variations of control inputs are also
shown in Fig. 15.
6 Conclusion
In this paper, we propose a second-order slidingmode controller using a PID sliding surface for an
autonomous underwater vehicle. The second-order
sliding-mode controller compensates for uncertain
hydrodynamics and for disturbances such as waves,
currents, and buoyancy force. We proved that the
closed-loop system is exponentially stable under parameter uncertainties and unknown disturbances. We
tested the proposed controller in surge, sway, and heave
using a computer simulation of an AUV model, and in
heave using a real AUV. Comparison of the accuracy of
SMC, and 2-SMCs without and with the switching controller in the simulation and experimental results verify that the proposed controller increased the accuracy
of trajectory tracking for an AUV in the presence of
uncertain hydrodynamics and unknown disturbances.
For future work, we aim at developing 2-SMC for the
AUV without decoupling each motion in surge and
sway with the motion in yaw, and applying it for the
AUV under constant and sinusoidal disturbances.
Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Civil
Military Technology Cooperation Center, Korea and Gyeonbuk
Seagrant Program funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Korea, under the IT Consilience Creative Program (NIPA2014-H0201-14-1001) supervised by the National IT Industry
Promotion Agency.

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