Adaptive robust sliding mode control of autonomous underwater glider with input constraints for persistent virtual mooring

•A soft landing tracking control problem is formulated for persistent virtual mooring of autonomous underwater glider (AUG).•An adaptive robust sliding mode controller is designed for the motion tracking control problem with the uncertainty and unknown time-varying disturbance.•A dynamic auxiliary system is utilized to analyze and reduce the effect of the saturation of linear velocity of moving mass and pumping rate of AUG.