Media type: E-Article Title: Black‐box position and attitude tracking for underwater vehicles by second‐order sliding‐mode technique Contributor: Bartolini, Giorgio; Pisano, Alessandro imprint: Wiley, 2010 Published in: International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control Language: English DOI: 10.1002/rnc.1532 ISSN: 1099-1239; 1049-8923 Origination: Footnote: Description: <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>In this work we address the tracking control problems for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The proposed solution is based on the variable structure systems (VSS) theory and, in particular, on the second‐order sliding‐mode (2‐SM) methodology. The tuning of the controller is carried out via black‐box approach, dispensing with the knowledge of the actual AUV parameters, by simply progressively increasing a single gain parameter. The presented stability analysis includes explicitly the unmodelled actuator dynamics and the presence of external uncertain disturbances. The good performance of the proposed scheme is verified by means of simulations on a 6‐DOF AUV. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.</jats:p>