Three dimensional pursuit guidance and control of submersible vehicles

Abstract

A pure pursuit guidance law is combined with a heading autopilot to provide accurate path keeping of submersible vehicles. The scheme is implemented and analyzed in both the horizontal and vertical planes. A complete stability analysis is performed in order to evaluate regions of stable vehicle operations. Numerical integrations support the analytic predictions. Two distinct stability boundaries are established. In the first, the vehicle loss of stability is accompanied by the generation of oscillatory motions around the commanded path. In the second, loss of stability occurs with linearly increasing path deviation. The horizontal and vertical plane schemes are combined with a propulsion control law in order to achieve path tracking of a general commanded route composed of several straight line segments in three dimensional space.