Focusing on the model uncertainties of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unknown marine environmental disturbances, an anti-disturbance target-tracking control algorithm, based on extended state observer (ESO), is proposed for twin-screw unmanned surface vehicles.

At the kinematic level, a guidance law based on the principle of constant bearing is presented for USVs. At the kinetic level, aiming at model uncertainties and unknown disturbances, surge velocity and yaw angular velocity anti-disturbance control laws based on ESOs are designed to eliminate the problems caused by model uncertainties and unknown marine environmental disturbances. Finally, the proposed controllers' stabilities are analyzed via in-put-to-state stability and cascade theory.

The results show that such a USV can effectively track the virtual target point using the proposed anti-disturbance target tracking controller.

The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm is verified via experimental results.