Motion Control of AUV "MR-X1" by Thrusters

Abstract

SummaryA small AUV "MR-X1" was developed in 2000 for detailed investigation of the seafloor and marine organisms at JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology). In order to assure high maneuverability under low-speed cruising and good hovering performance, the motion of the vehicle is controlled by five thrusters.When the vehicle was built, PID control was implemented, but in order to improve control performance, renovation of the vehicle operating system has been ongoing since 2007, and a model based control (LQI control) is due to be adopted when this is complete.The paper summarizes the mathematical model of the vehicle and the design method of the motion and path controller, and shows successful numerical simulated results.

Development and Simulation of Operational Scenarios for Underwater Cable-driven Parallel Robot

“…To solve the problem of underwater application of MCDPR, we proposed an underwater cable-driven parallel robot (UCDPR), which is composed of multiple robots that work on the surface of the water [autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), and others], (8) and developed a modeling method for the mechanism that takes into account cable dynamics underwater (9,10) and for a basic control system configuration. (10,11) To operate the UCDPR in an actual environment, it is necessary to consider operational scenarios (12,13) from the landing of the robot on the water to the execution of the objective task (or the recovery of the robot), just as one must consider with general underwater robots [such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUVs)], and to design an appropriate controller for each scenario. Therefore, we have developed a scenario based on the operation of a UCDPR in an actual environment and have performed control simulations based on this operational scenario.…”