On the tuning of a nonlinear energy-based regulator for the positioning of a fully actuated surface marine craft

The authors address the problem of tuning a non-linear energy-based regulator for the positioning of a surface marine craft. Interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PBC) is used for the control design, resulting in passive target dynamics that can be expressed as a port-Hamiltonian system (PHS). The IDA-PBC methodology has been successfully utilised in several applications, however, there has been minimal development in tuning methods that can analytically assist the designer to achieve desired response characteristics. It is demonstrated that eigenvalue assignment of the linearised target dynamics in PHS form can significantly aid the tuning process. Based on this analysis, the authors propose a systematic tuning approach to achieve certain performance and response characteristics. A comprehensive demonstration of the proposed tuning method is provided for the position regulation of an underwater vehicle in the horizontal plane in a case study, where numerical analysis of robustness is also conducted.