Velocity-based tuning of degree of homogeneity for finite-time stabilization and fault tolerant control of an ROV in the presence of thruster saturation and rate limits

This paper introduces a homogeneous controller along a fixed-time state and fault observer for finite-time stabilization and fault accommodation of a remotely-operated vehicle in the presence of actuator saturation and rate limits. For this, a novel tuning algorithm is improvised for manipulating the degree of homogeneity in homogeneous controllers to effectively acquire different properties from the overall control system. The tuning of degree of homogeneity is based on vehicle’s velocity. The proposed algorithm results in a switching-type controller, which undergoes three different stages during the operation, to eliminate the sensitivity of conventional finite-time and fixed-time controllers to large initial errors in the presence of thruster constraints. In addition, a new fixed-time fault and state observer is designed for the realization of output feedback control and fault tolerance by combining a fixed-time state observer with a fault estimation unit. In contrast to conventional extended-state observers, this observer considers the dynamics of the thruster system in its formulation so that better performance can be provided for the control system upon thruster failures. Control allocation is utilized to accommodate thruster failures and faults and to take account of thruster saturation and rate limits. Stability analyses are carried out for the overall control system and the proposed observer. It is shown that the closed-loop control system would be globally finite-time stable. The state estimation subsystem is fixed-time stable and the fault estimation unit is input-to-state stable. Simulations are carried out and comparisons are made with several finite-time and fixed-time controllers to outline the advantages of the proposed homogeneous controller and the benefits of the overall fault-tolerant control system.