Development of an Adaptive Fuzzy Integral-Derivative Line-of-Sight Method for Bathymetric LiDAR Onboard Unmanned Surface Vessel

Previous control methods developed by our research team cannot satisfy the high accuracy requirements of unmanned surface vessel (USV) path-tracking during bathymetric mapping because of the excessive overshoot and slow convergence speed. For this reason, this study developed an adaptive fuzzy integral-derivative line-of-sight (AFIDLOS) method for USV path-tracking control. Integral and derivative terms were added to counteract the effect of the sideslip angle with which the USV could be quickly guided to converge to the planned path for bathymetric mapping. To obtain high accuracy of the look-ahead distance, a fuzzy control method was proposed. The proposed method was verified using simulations and outdoor experiments. The results demonstrate that the AFIDLOS method can reduce the overshoot by 79.85%, shorten the settling time by 55.32% in simulation experiments, reduce the average cross-track error by 10.91% and can ensure a 30% overlap of neighboring strips of bathymetric LiDAR outdoor mapping when compared with the traditional guidance law.