Passivity-preserving safety-critical path following cascade control of underactuated surface vehicles with disturbance rejection

Authors

Lina Jin, Wei Chen, Shuanghe Yu

Abstract

This paper proposes a safety-critical cascade control strategy based on the Port-Hamiltonian (PH) framework and Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) to resolve the actuation singularities caused by High-Order CBFs and the Quadratic Program (QP) infeasibility of standard Control Lyapunov Function Control Barrier Function (CLF-CBF) frameworks applied to underactuated surface vehicles (USVs). The outer position loop reformulates the Line-of-Sight (LOS) kinematic error dynamics into a PH structure and utilizes Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity-Based Control (IDA-PBC) to construct a nominal path-following controller. A kinematic-layer CBF safety filter computes safety-filtered virtual velocity references for the inner-loop, and a passivity-preserving theorem is established within the PH framework. Subsequently, the inner velocity loop integrates IDA-PBC with an H ∞ scheme to track these references and actively attenuate unknown disturbances, compensating for the inherent underactuation of USVs. Comparative simulations across three distinct scenarios validate that the proposed framework effectively suppresses actuator chattering during robust path following and ensures reliable obstacle avoidance capabilities in highly dynamic multi-obstacle environments.

Keywords

control barrier functions, h ∞ control, ida-pbc, path following, underactuated surface vehicle

Citation

• Journal: Ocean Engineering
• Year: 2026
• Volume: 364
• Issue:
• Pages: 126980
• Publisher: Elsevier BV
• DOI: 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2026.126980

BibTeX

@article{Jin_2026,
  title={{Passivity-preserving safety-critical path following cascade control of underactuated surface vehicles with disturbance rejection}},
  volume={364},
  ISSN={0029-8018},
  DOI={10.1016/j.oceaneng.2026.126980},
  journal={Ocean Engineering},
  publisher={Elsevier BV},
  author={Jin, Lina and Chen, Wei and Yu, Shuanghe},
  year={2026},
  pages={126980}
}

Download the bib file

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