Nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode-based robust adaptive structural reliable position-mooring control with uncertainty estimation

This paper addresses a novel robust structural reliable position mooring scheme for a turret-moored floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel subject to system uncertainties, environmental disturbances and unmeasurable velocity. A realistic mooring tension model considering buoys and different cable materials that can improve the capacity of the mooring system is derived. A sigmoid tracking differentiator (STD) is employed as a state observer to estimate the unmeasurable velocity. A structural reliability index is introduced to design a position mooring control law so that an FPSO vessel adequately uses a mooring system on the premise of safety to maintain position in an allowable region. It provides strong robustness and a fast transient response and suppresses chattering by merits of a backstepping method and an integral nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode surface (INFTSMS). An adaptive estimator is proposed to address the required unknown uncertainties and disturbances. Theoretical analysis proves the globally asymptotic stability of the whole system. Finally, comparative simulations on an FPSO vessel are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed position mooring control scheme.