Wave disturbance compensation for AUV diving control in shallow water environment

Abstract

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) operating near the surface are subject to significant disturbances due to wave motion. In order to counteract the oscillatory effect of the waves in the actuators system, it is critical to remove it from the feedback loop. In this paper, a linear passive observer is designed to estimate shallow water wave motion and low frecuency motion by using depth measurement. A set of simulation is presented to show the performance of the proposed observer for depth control of an AUV by using both simulated and real data. The results based on collected data confirm the suitable filtering and the navigation response expected, reducing control actions and thus vibrations of the rudders