Network-Based Heading Control and Rudder Oscillation Reduction for Unmanned Surface Vehicles

This paper is concerned with network-based heading control and rudder oscillation reduction for an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) equipped with single rudder in network environments. A novel network-based model is first established by constructing a heading control error system and purposely dropping some control input packets, which are received by a steering machine. Then, a stabilization criterion is derived to guarantee the heading angle tracking performance and to reduce the oscillation of the rudder angle. Some algorithms for selecting the number of purposely dropped control input packets are presented. It is shown through heading control and rudder oscillation reduction performance analysis that compared with the controller design without dropping control input packets purposely, the proposed intentional packet dropouts-based controller design is more effective in improving the control performance of the USV.