Fault-Tolerant Control for ROV Path Tracking Based on Thrust Distribution Strategy

In order to solve the problem that the remote operated vehicle (ROV) receives complex interference when working underwater, which leads to the fault of the propeller, the path tracking of ROV with fault-tolerant ability is studied. First, the ROV model is established and decoupled to obtain its 4-DOF nonlinear model. On this basis, an adaptive backstepping sliding mode path tracking controller is designed. Then, for different degrees of thruster fault, a fault-tolerant control method based on thrust distribution strategy which can be carried out according to the fault degree of the thruster is proposed. The simulation results show that the algorithm of path tracking and method of fault-tolerant proposed in this paper can ensure the normal realization of ROV path tracking task when the thruster is faulty, and effectively improve the stability and fault-tolerance of ROV path tracking.