Adaptive Control of Small Outboard-Powered Boats for Survey Applications

Abstract

Four autopilot controllers have been developed in this work that can both hold a desired heading and follow a straight line. These PID, adaptive PID, neuro-adaptive, and adaptive augmenting control algorithms have all been implemented into a numerical simulation of a 33-foot center console vessel with wind, waves, and current disturbances acting in the perpendicular (across-track) direction of the boat's desired trajectory. Each controller is tested for its ability to follow a desired heading in the presence of these disturbances and then to follow a straight line at two different throttle settings for the same disturbances. These controllers were tuned for an input thrust of 2000 N and all four controllers showed good performance with none of the controllers significantly outperforming the others when holding a constant heading and following a straight line at this engine thrust. Each controller was then tested for a reduced engine thrust of 1200 N per engine where each of the three adaptive controllers reduced heading error and across-track error by approximately 50% after a 300 second tuning period when compared to the fixed gain PID, showing that significant robustness to changes in throttle setting was gained by using an adaptive algorithm.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA527227

Entities

People

  • A. D. Fisher
  • J. H. Vanzwieten Jr.
  • T. S. Vanzwieten

Organizations

  • Florida Atlantic University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Automatic Pilots
  • Closed Loop Systems
  • Control Systems
  • Displacement
  • Errors
  • Gulf Stream
  • Integrals
  • Marine Energy
  • Navigation
  • Neural Networks
  • Rotation
  • Sea Level
  • Simulations
  • Space Flight
  • Standards
  • Trajectories

Readers

  • Marine Hydrodynamics
  • Robotics and Automation.