Fixed-time output feedback trajectory tracking control of marine surface vessels subject to unknown external disturbances and uncertainties

This paper proposes a novel fixed-time output feedback control scheme for trajectory tracking of marine surface vessels (MSVs) subject to unknown external disturbances and uncertainties. A fixed-time extended state observer (FESO) is proposed to estimate unknown lumped disturbances and unmeasured velocities, and the observation errors will converge to zero in fixed time. Based on the estimated values, a novel fixed-time trajectory tracking controller is designed for an MSV to track a time-varying reference trajectory by the extension of an adding a power integrator (API), and the tracking errors can converge to zero in fixed time as well. Additionally, the convergence time of the controller and the FESO is independent of initial state values. Finally, simulation results and comparisons illustrate the superiority of the proposed control scheme. (C) 2019 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.