Design of stable nonlinear guidance of an underwater vehicle in the ship wake via estimated path by particle filter

Guidance of an underwater vehicle in the wake of target due to the complexity of guidance in water and also sensor limitations, is still the most important homing guidance method. Disadvantages of wake guidance can be mentioned as zigzag motion for rediscovering the wake in its path which according to the decreasing linear speed of approaching the target, sometime it doesnt reach the target and collision fails. Therefore various ideas, with both positive and negative aspects, have been introduced to improve movement in the wake path. According to complexity of the wake model and also its instability in order to extract its parameters, makes it a very nonlinear phenomenon and guidance in it is a problematic in underwater vehicle. Since the wake detection area by the sensor is not enough widespread, wake is just discovered in the near of itself. Hence the real wake path is not detectable and therefore advanced guidance method is not available. For this reason, it is suggested to use a method of unknown path tracking for the wake guidance. This guidance law consists of two parts of path estimation and nonlinear guidance. The estimation method is performed using particle filter that has the ability to estimate nonlinear paths. The stability proof of nonlinear guidance method is done by Lyapunov.