Practical Prescribed-Time Trajectory Tracking Control for Marine Surface Vehicles

This brief focuses on the problem of prescribed-time trajectory tracking control for marine surface vehicles (MSVs). First, a novel practical prescribed-time stability theorem is introduced to simplify and streamline the controller/observer design process. Next, a prescribed-time disturbance observer (PTDO) is designed to estimate the lumped disturbance. Last, a PTDO-based practical prescribed-time controller is developed using the backstepping method. The controller aims to achieve convergence of the trajectory tracking error of the MSVs within a prescribed time. The convergence time is determined by a simple parameter assignment. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed prescribed-time control scheme is effective.