Stochastic path following control of marine vehicles with multiple disturbances and input saturation.

The current paper investigates the path following control problem for marine vehicles with multiple disturbances and input saturation. First, considering that marine vehicles exposed to the marine environment always contain stochastic components, which were ignored in most of the previous studies, the multiple disturbances in this paper are decomposed into complex nonlinear terms, slow-varying disturbances, and stochastic disturbances. Accordingly, an appropriate stochastic differential model is constructed. Second, a new stochastic path following control strategy based on the fuzzy logic system, the stochastic disturbance observer, and the auxiliary dynamic compensators is established. The fuzzy logic system is adopted for approximating the complex nonlinear terms, the stochastic disturbance observer is constructed to estimate the slow-varying disturbances in stochastic situation, and the auxiliary dynamic compensators are designed to tackle input saturation. In the end, the stability of the entire system is proven through linear matrix inequalities and Lyapunov functions. The simulation results demonstrate the proposed controller's effectiveness and robustness. • The multiple disturbances are divided into three categories, and astochastic differential model is proposed. • The fuzzy logic system is adopted for approximating the marine vehicle model's complex nonlinear terms. • The stochastic disturbance observer is constructed to estimate the slow-varying disturbances in stochastic situation. • The auxiliary dynamic compensators are adopted to overcome the input saturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]