EXPONENTIAL STABILIZATION OF AN UNDERACTUATED AUTONOMOUS SURFACE VESSEL

This paper studies the problem of controlling the planar position and orientation of an autonomous surface vessel using two independent thru sters. It is first shown that although the system is not asymptoticall y stabilizable to a given configuration using a time-invariant continu ous feedback, it is strongly accessible and small-time locally control lable at any equilibrium. Time-invariant discontinuous feedback laws a re then constructed to asymptotically stabilize the system to the desi red configuration with exponential convergence rates. A simulation exa mple is included to demonstrate the results. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.