Przemyslaw Herman - Inertial Quasi-Velocity Based Controllers for a Class of Vehicles: With Simulation Applications for Underwater Vehicles, Hovercrafts, and Indoor Airships

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The topic of the monograph fits into the multifaceted research problem of mobile robotics and autonomous systems. In particular, it is focused on modelling and motion control. In my opinion, it is important to emphasize that unlike many other books dealing with issues specific to wheeled vehicles, commonly regarded as kinematic nonholonomic systems, this monograph explores research areas concerning another class of vehicles for which the proper modelling of dynamics is particularly relevant. The author of this monograph, Prof. Przemysaw Herman, whom I have personally known for 20 years, is a specialist in applications of the Inertial Quasi-Velocities (IQV) in robotics. He published many papers in well-recognized scientific journals in which he reflects his personal perspective combing analytical mechanics with nonlinear control theory in an original way. In this book, he draws on his many years of experience in modelling multibody serial mechanical structures, which are commonly used in industrial manipulators, and investigates the development of the application of the IQV for a new class of mechanical systems including vehicles interacting with a fluid environment such as robotized vessels, submarines, hovercrafts and airships.

The monograph consists of 13 chapters and the appendix. The first chapters are devoted in detail to the issue of modelling kinematics and dynamics of selected systems in the framework of the IQV taking advantage of Generalized Velocity Component (GVC) and Normalized Generalized Velocity Component (NGVC) variants. The cases of planar and spatial motion are addressed separately. In the following chapters, the author deals with the design of feedback motion control algorithms for a selected class of vehicles. He takes into account the point stabilization and especially trajectory tracking control tasks. The considered motion controllers are designed with perfect and also imperfect knowledge of the system dynamics, and are presented in terms of GVC and NGVC using earth fixed and body fixed coordinate frames. In addition, adaptive techniques are employed to improve the robustness of these controllers to some class of bounded disturbances. The essential theoretical tools used in the book are based on well-established mathematical methods including, among others, nonlinear transformations of state variables to obtain an alternative description of motion dynamics and Lyapunov-based techniques to study the stability of the closed-loop system. In my opinion, an important element of the work is the presentation of simulation results obtained on many scenarios which give an insight into the performance of the investigated control algorithms. I think that these may be relevant for a preliminary assessment of the applicability of the proposed methods in practice. One of my favourite chapters concerns the author's analysis focused on the possibility of studying the dynamics of vehicles based on the closed-loop system response evaluated in terms of the IQV.