Waypoint guidance control for underwater snake robots exposed to ocean currents

This paper presents a waypoint guidance strategy for underwater snake robots, which is an extension of the straight line path following controllers previously proposed by the authors. The proposed waypoint guidance control enables an underwater snake robot to converge towards and follow a desired path compensating for disturbances due to ocean currents effects. The ocean currents are constant and irrotational, and with unknown magnitude and direction. A set of waypoints is chosen along the desired path which is then defined by interconnecting these waypoints by straight lines. Simulation results for both lateral undulation and eel-like motion illustrate the performance of the guidance strategy.