The invention discloses a method in a boat control field and especially relates to the sliding mode-reverse step double loop trace tracking control method of an underactuated unmanned surface vehicle.The method comprises the following steps of firstly, establishing a three-degree-of-freedom motion mathematical model of the heading, the surging and the swaying of the unmanned surface vehicle; then, through an integrated pose sensor, measuring the current position information of the unmanned surface vehicle, combining the real-time position and the reference trace of the unmanned surface vehicle, calculating an error under a boat body coordinate system; and then, designing a kinematic loop trace tracking controller based on a backstepping method, and designing a dynamic loop trace trackingcontroller based on a sliding mode control algorithm. Through a sliding mode-reverse step double loop trace tracking controller, the trace tracking control of the unmanned surface vehicle Is realized,the unmanned surface vehicle can track a linear trace, and the stability and accuracy of unmanned surface vehicle navigation can be increased.