Design of an Underwater Vehicle With Orientation-Adjustable Thrusters and Adaptive Tracking Control

Abstract:Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) are essential for marine exploration and research. However, conventional designs often struggle with limited maneuverability in complex and dynamic underwater environments. This paper presents an orientation-adjustable thruster UUV (OAT-UUV) with vector thrusters, enabling full six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) motion. and composite maneuvers. To overcome challenges associated with uncertain model parameters and environmental disturbances, a vision-based tracking control system based on a novel feedforward adaptive model predictive controller (FF-AMPC) is proposed to achieve robust object tracking, which integrates realtime state feedback with adaptive parameter updating. Extensive experiments, including closed-loop tracking and composite motion tests in real-world environment, have been conducted. The obtained results demonstrate that the orientation-adjustable propulsion design significantly improves the underwater maneuverability, while the FF-AMPC controller achieves a 49.1% hovering improvement compared to conventional controller.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2503.19288 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2503.19288v2 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.19288 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics (2026) early access

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