Abstract: Traditional ROV(Remote Operated Vehicle) attitude control methods, operated underwater by ROVs, have suffered from chattering and poor stability. A new cooperative control law is proposed and ROV attitude controlleris designed based on thrust vector distribution. Firstly, the ROV kinematics model and dynamics model are established, and the thrust vector distribution model and decoupling dynamics model are carried out. Then, a new cooperative control law is proposed. By constructing appropriate macro variables, the macro variables converge exponentially to provide continuous control rate for the ROV attitude control system and eliminate chattering. Finally, a new cooperative control law is used to design the ROV attitude controller based on thrust vector allocation. The results of Matlab / Simulink simulation show that the proposed new cooperative control law can improve the control accuracy and stability of the ROV attitude control system. The control strategy provides a new feasible scheme for ROV attitude control. 

Key words: underwater vehicle, thrust vector distribution, new cooperative control, Matlab / Simulink; attitude control