Experimental and simulation study on nonlinear pitch control of Seagull underwater glider

Abstract

The Seagull underwater glider, developed by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, is designed as a test-bed glider for the development and validation of various algorithms to enhance the glider’s long-term autonomy. In this paper, an adaptive backstepping control (ABC) method is proposed for the nonlinear pitch control of the underwater glider gliding in the vertical plane. The linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control are applied and evaluated with the ABC method to control a glider in saw-tooth motion. Simulation results demonstrate inherent effectiveness and superiority of the LQR or PID based method. According to Lyapunov stability theory, the ABC control scheme is derived to ensure the tracking errors asymptotically converge to zero. The ABC controller has been implemented on Seagull underwater glider, and verified in field experiments in the Qiandao Lake, Zhejiang.