Marine Robot Control

The chapter focuses on the basic principles, challenges, and methodologies underlying the control of marine robotic systems deployed in dynamic marine environments. Marine robotics spans a wide range of platforms, including autonomous surface vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles, which require individual approaches in control strategies to address the specific challenges regarding hydrodynamical interaction, sensors limitation and communication delay. The chapter provides an overview of these marine platforms, describes the basic principles for their mathematical modeling, outlines control techniques commonly in use, and highlights areas of major applications such as underwater mapping, environmental monitoring, and infrastructure inspection. Finally, some emergent trends are and challenges are discussed such as multi-robot coordination, energy-efficient operations, and robust control in harsh conditions.