Tracking Control of Marine Craft in the port-Hamiltonian Framework: A Virtual Differential Passivity Approach

TL;DR

This paper develops a family of trajectory tracking controllers for marine craft within the port-Hamiltonian framework using virtual differential passivity, enabling effective control design and simulation validation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel control approach combining port-Hamiltonian models with virtual differential passivity for marine craft trajectory tracking.

Findings

Controllers successfully track trajectories in simulations.

The virtual differential passivity approach enhances control robustness.

Models in different frames are effectively managed.

Abstract

In this work we propose a family of trajectory tracking controllers for marine craft in the port-Hamiltonian (pH) framework using virtual differential passivity based control (v-dPBC). Two pH models of marine craft are considered, one in a body frame and another in an inertial frame. The structure and workless forces of pH models are exploited to design two virtual control systems which are related to the original marine craft's pH models. These virtual systems are rendered differentially passive with an imposed steady-state trajectory, both by means of a control scheme. Finally, the original marine craft pH models in closed-loop with above controllers solve the trajectory tracking problem. The performance of the closedloop system is evaluated on numerical simulations.