Stabilizing underwater vehicle motion using internal rotors (Q1858340)

The problem of stabilizing an underwater vehicle making use of internal rotors as actuators is considered. The control design method comprises three steps. The first step involves shaping the kinetic energy of the conservative dynamics. For the underwater vehicle, the control term from this step may be interpreted as a modification of the system inertia. In the second step, a feedback dissipation is designed making use of a Lyapunov function determined in the first step. In the third step, a general model for the viscous force and moment on the vehicle is included and it is shown that these effects enhance the stability of the system. This method is applied to a vehicle whose centers of buoyancy and gravity coincide and then to a vehicle with noncoincident centers of buoyancy and gravity.