Controller Design and Simulation of a Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehide

반자율 무인잠수정의 제어기 설계 및 시뮬레이션

This paper describes the design and simulation of a multivariable optimal control system for the combined speed, heading and depth control of a Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (SAUV) developed in Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KRODI). The SAUV is a test-bed for the evaluation of the navigation and manipulator technologies developed for a mine disposal vehicle (MDV) in military use and for a light working underwater vehicle in scientific use. The vehicle was designed to control its cruising speed, heading and depth with 4 horizontal thrusters installed at the rear of the hull. Therefore, the decoupled control methods are limited to apply to the SAUV because the thrust forces are highly coupled with the surging, yawing, and pitching motion of the vehicle. The multivariable Linear Quadratic (LQ) control method is chosen to control steering and diving in variable speed motion automatically. A series of simulation is carried out with fully nonlinear six degree of freedom dynamic model to validate the controller.