2009 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Control, and Telecommunication Technologies

Look up Table based Fuzzy Logic Controller for

Unmanned Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
P.V.S.Sobhan1, Dr. G.V.Nagesh Kumar2 , M.Ramya Priya2 , and B.Venkateswara Rao3
1

Vignan University, Vadlamudi, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA

Vignans Institute of Information Technology, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, INDIA
3
Thandrapaparayya Institute of Science and Technology, Bobbili, Vizayanagaram
medium in which they travel is high. The primary objective of
Control System for an underwater vehicle is to generate correct
control signal to attain the stability of the system. In addition to
stability, the response of the system should be fast and it must
be able to reduce errors to tolerable limits. This necessitates a
suitable controller for those systems that need improvement in
their performance. Conventional controllers are inadequate for
such tasks as they provide the robustness only over a small
range and the complete dynamics of the vehicle should be
known precisely for their design. Since the hydrodynamic
characteristics of the vehicle are known only after its design,
the development of a conventional controller involves
exhaustive and expensive testing of the vehicle. Human
operators often satisfactorily control many of them complex
systems and are attributed to the capabilities of human beings
to make decisions based on inexact qualitative information
about the system.

Abstract The underwater vehicle is six degrees of freedom

model. The execution of spatial maneuvers are determined
mainly by the dynamic properties of underwater vehicle
particularly controllability and stability. The control surfaces are
situated at the rear end of the underwater vehicle which moves
either vertically or horizontally (Pitch, Yaw, Roll, Pitch-rate,
Yaw-rate etc.) used to steer the vehicle to run according to
preprogrammed course as per logic till such a time the target is
acquired. The underwater vehicle response is slow compared to
air scenario due to constraints like higher density of water; the
resistance motion is many hundred times greater than air. In this
paper a rule-based fuzzy logic controller is designed for Yaw
control, which is used for the rudder movement of an underwater
vehicle. A Plant model is extracted using the input and output
behavior and is assumed to be a linear time invariant second
order. For on line implementation a decision table is stored in
underwater vehicle computer memory in the form of Lookup
table. For each combination of Inputs the required search will be
done in the table and the appropriate value will be picked up.
Using this technique the control algorithm becomes shorter and
runs faster than those that reinterpret the rules at each control
cycle of the system. This Lookup Table is used in the simulation
of Yaw control of a Six Degrees of Freedom Model. The plant
responses are compared for both conventional controller and
fuzzy logic controller with regard to time of response, overshoot
and steady state error.

The underwater vehicle is a self propelled, self-controlled

projectile, which can be launched either from air or from ships.
The control surfaces are situated at the rear end of the
underwater vehicle which moves either vertically or
horizontally (Pitch, Yaw, Roll, Pitch-rate, Yaw-rate etc.) used
to steer the vehicle to run according to preprogrammed course
as per logic till such a time the target is acquired. The
underwater vehicle under consideration is six degrees of
freedom model. The first three degrees of freedom are
translational in nature and are required to position the
underwater vehicle. The remaining three degrees of freedom
are rotational in nature and are required for orientation of the
vehicle. Besides, complex hydrodynamic equations and
transfer functions are required for the actual plant and to the
design of the system. Due to this reason the mathematical
modeling of the plant is difficult. Thus fuzzy logic, which
excels in dealing with imprecision, has an edge over the
conventional controller to tackle highly complex, non-linear
problems beyond the capability of conventional methods [6-10]

Keywords-Fuzzy Logic, Robustness, Underwater Vechiles,

Autonomous Vechiles.

I.

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that Control Systems theory is one of the

major areas in the field of engineering and technology. It is a
fact that the analysis and design of control systems is a very
important and useful aspect in the case of application of
Control theory to practical systems. We know that there are
several methods available for the analysis and design of
systems for the improvement of system behavior and response.
But these available methods are more effective and easily be
applied if the system mathematical model is known. During the
past several years, Fuzzy control has emerged as one of the
most active and fruitful areas for research in the application of
Fuzzy set theory [1-5], especially in the realm of industrial
process, which dont lend themselves to control by
conventional methods because of a lack of quantitative data
regarding the input-output relations. The underwater vehicles
are slow response vehicles because of low speeds and the dense
978-0-7695-3915-7/09 $26.00 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ACT.2009.128

The ability to use simple linguistic variables rather than

numerical variables in order to work more easily with systems
too complex for mathematical modeling is the main objective
of Fuzzy logic controller. So, based on the above facts it is felt
that a Fuzzy Logic Controller is to be designed for the present
unmanned autonomous underwater vehicle, which does not
require well-defined mathematical model. The objective of this
paper is to design a Rule-based Fuzzy logic Controller for the
underwater vehicle control. The designed Fuzzy logic
497

controller is tested for robustness by varying the parameters of

the extracted plant model and the results have been presented
and analyzed. Control algorithms for Yaw control and design
considerations for the development of a fuzzy logic controller
are given.
II.

DESIGN OF FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLER

The basic Configuration of Fuzzy Logic Controller is

shown in Figure 1. The Data available from the Underwater
Vehicle is the maximum control surface deflections of 20
and maximum turn rate of 20 /sec. The design objective for
this class of underwater vehicles is Minimum Overshoot Maximum permissible overshoot < 10% and Steady State error
< = 10%. In the current application of Fuzzy Logic Controller,
Error and Error Change are treated as the input variables. The
total Universe of discourse for each linguistic variable is
portioned into 8 linguistic values (Large Positive
(LP),
Medium Positive (MP), Small Positive (SP), Positive Zero
(PZ), Negative Zero (NZ), Small Negative (SN), Medium
Negative (MN) and Large Positive (LP).
Triangular
/
Trapezoidal membership functions are assumed for mapping
the input values into the respective linguistic sets. The
Membership functions for inputs (error and error change) and
output (rudder deflection) are shown in Figures 2 to 4.

Fig 3. Membership Functions for Output Rudder Deflection

The rules are chosen to get minimum overshoot and faster

response. Some of the rules applied in the designed FLC are
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

If (error is LP) then (rudder_deflection is LP)

If (error is PZ) and (error_change is LP) then (rudder_deflection is SN)
If (error is PZ) and (error_change is MP) then (rudder_deflection is SN)
If (error is SP) and (error_change is PZ) then (rudder_deflection is SP)
If (error is SP) and (error_change is NZ) then (rudder_deflection is SP)
If (error is SP) and (error_change is SN) then (rudder_deflection is SP)
If (error is SP) and (error_change is MN) then (rudder_deflection is SP)

Another set of 21 rules are included to cater for the

complementary conditions. The firing strength of the rules are
determined by the property of intersection i.e., the minimum of
the membership functions.
i = Ai(x) Bi(y)

(1)

Mamdani s Minimum operational rule is used as the fuzzy

implication for finding the control decision.
Cil(w) = i Ci(w)

(2)

Where Ai , Bi , Ci are the Fuzzy sets in the Universe U,V,W

with membership functions Ai , Bi ,Ci . and xU, yV,
wW and is the set intersection. The total consequence is
found by taking the union of all rules. The Rudder Deflection is
treated as the Output. Center of Area method (COA) is used to
find the crisp control action from the above fuzzy
consequences as it yields superior results and better steady state
performance. The results obtained are consequent to several
modifications of the rules initially set. The trial and error
method was used to obtain an effective set of rules. In other
words a learning procedure was employed by which human
performance in a similar real life situation is derived. Hence the
stability of the controller is a problem of obtaining an
effective set of rules. In the algorithm used the universe of
discourse of inputs (to controller) has been divided into 9
subsets and only small number of rules 42 has been employed.
This limits the adaptability of the controller.

Fig1. Basic Configuration of Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC)

III.

Fig 2. Membership Functions for Input Error

SIMULATION RESULTS

As the speed, length and diameter of this underwater

vehicle are in comparison with an underwater vehicle, the
approximate model is extracted using the input and output
behavior at various times namely rudder deflections vs turn
rate. The Plant model (turn rate/control surface deflection) is
assumed to be a linear time invariant second order
k n2/s2+2ns+n2. The rudder input data are fed to the
models and parameters k, and n are varied till the model
time response matches the trial data within the chosen limits.
The parameters are further fine-tuned with four different sets of

Fig 3. Membership Functions for Input Error Change

498

trial data. Integrating the turn rate derives the azimuth attitude.
The plant models thus obtained are as follows:
T.F = 280 / (s2+90*s+225)

Second order

The designed Fuzzy Logic Controller is tested in a

MATLAB based Simulink software. The Fuzzy Control
algorithm is developed using Fuzzy Logic Toolbox for
MATLAB. Since the plant models obtained by the above
process are very approximate, 50% variations are given on
damping () and natural frequency (n) of second order plant
on both sides plant models are obtained. To verify the
robustness of the Fuzzy Logic Controller, the extracted plant
models in Table I are tested in Simulink environment. The
block diagram is shown in Figure 4. The fuzzy controllers
behavior under the above varying plant conditions is shown in
Figures 5 to 13. The X-axis is time and Y axis is rudder
deflection for Figures 5 to 13.
The Fuzzy control algorithm derived above is
computation intensive; so far the ease of implementation a
decision table is generated off-line from the above algorithm
to define the output of the controller. This decision table is
generated by quantising the range of Error and Error change
into various levels and passing them offline to the above
algorithm and storing the corresponding output values in a
logic table. The quantisation levels and the logic table can be
seen in Table 3. For on line implementation the decision
table is stored in underwater vehicle computer memory in the
form of lookup table. For each combination of error and errorchange the required search will be done in the table and the
appropriate value will be picked up from the table for that
combination. Using this technique the control algorithm
becomes shorter and runs faster than those that reinterpret the
rules at each control cycle of the system. The look-up-table
formed based on the above fuzzy logic controller is used in the
simulation of the yaw control of a six degrees of freedom
model.

Fig 4 Look up Table implementation to Six DOF Model.

Fig 5. Plant 1: G1 = 280 / (s2+90*s+225)

TABLE I
PLANT MODELS FOR SECOND ORDER TRANSFER FUNCTION

Transfer Function

15.0

280 / (s2+90*s+225)

22.5

630 / (s2+135*s+506.25)

7.5

70 / (s2+45*s+56.25)

15

4.5

280 / (s2+135*s+225)

15

1.5

280 / (s2+45*s+225)

22.5

4.5

630 / (s2+202.5*s+506.25)

22.5

1.5

630 / (s2+67.5*s+506.25)

7.5

4.5

70 / (s2+67.5*s+56.25)

7.5

1.5

70 / (s2+22.5*s+56.25)

Fig 6. Plant 2: G2 = 630.0 / (s2 +135*s+506.25)

Fig 7. Plant 3: G3 = 70.0 / (s2+45*s+56.25)

499

Fig 8. Plant 4: G4 = 280.0 / (s2+135*s+225)

Fig 12. Plant 8: G8 = 70.0 / (s2+67.5*s+56.25)

Fig 9. Plant 5: G5 = 280.0 / (s2+45*s+225)

Fig 13. Plant 9: G9 = 70.0 / (s2+22.5*s+56.25)

IV.

CONCLUSION

In this paper a Rule-based Fuzzy logic Controller is

designed for the underwater vehicle direction control. As
underwater vehicles are slow response vehicles because of the
dense medium in which they travel is high and the extraction of
plant models is a complicated process. The designed Fuzzy
Logic Controller is implemented to the physical system which
is six degrees of freedom model. Six degrees of freedom model
is a model for the underwater vehicle trajectory simulation. The
Fuzzy control algorithm derived is computation intensive; so
far the ease of implementation a decision table is generated offline from the fuzzy algorithm to define the output of the
controller. This decision table is generated by quantising the
range of inputs into various levels and passing them offline to
the fuzzy algorithm and storing the corresponding output
values in a logic table. For on line implementation the decision
table is stored in underwater vehicle computer memory in the
form of lookup table. The look-up-table formed based on the
above fuzzy logic controller is used in the simulation of the
yaw control of a six degrees of freedom model. For this plant,
50% variations are given on damping () and natural frequency
(n) of second order plant. Analysis has been done to verify
the robustness of the fuzzy control system, i.e. the parameters
are varied by 50 percent in the extracted plant model, and the
control system has still managed to meet the specifications.

Fig 10. Plant 6: G6 = 630.0 / (s2+202.5*s+506.25)

Fig 11. Plant 7: G7 = 630.0 / (s2+67.5*s+506.25)

500

[6]

W.J.M. Kickert and H.R.Van Nauta Lemke, Application of a fuzzy

controller in a warm plant, Automatica Vol. 12, PP 301-308, July 1976.
[7] Kwok.L.Tang and Robert J.Mulhovand Comparing Fuzzy Logic with
classical Controller Designs, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems PP
1085-1087, 1987.
[8] L.I.Larkin, Fuzzy Logic Controller for Aircraft Flight Control:, In
Industrial Applications of Fuzzy Control, M.Sugeno, Ed.Amsterdam :
North-Holland, 1985, PP 87-104.
[9] Chuen.Chien Lee, Fuzzy Logic in Control Systems: Fuzzy Logic
Controller Part I & II, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and
Cybernetics, Vol 20, No.2 March/April 1990. PP 404-435.
[10] G.V.Nagesh Kumar, KA. Gopala Rao and N.G.S.Raju Design of
Fuzzy logic Based controller for Unmanned Autonomous Underwater
Vehicle , National Conference on Recent Advances in Electrical
Engineering, NCRAEE 07,
Vignans Institute of Information
Technology, Visakhapatnam, Pg. 5-25 to 5-41.

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TABLE III

501