Trajectory tracking of a class of under-actuated thrust-propelled vehicle with uncertainties and unknown disturbances

This paper deals with the problem of designing a controller for a thrust-propelled vehicle which steers the vehicle to track a 3D spatial path, while effective compensation for both time-varying disturbances and uncertainties is achieved as well. Taking advantage of extraction algorithm, we separate the design for the translational and rotational dynamics. A back-stepping-based controller and a sliding mode controller are, respectively, designed for the translational and rotational dynamics in succession. The stability of the control framework is established through Lyapunov analysis. A numerical simulation is also included in the paper to render the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.