Control of a flexible, surface-piercing hydrofoil for high-speed, small-scale applications

In recent years, hydrofoils have become ubiquitous and critical components of high-performance surface vehicles. Twenty-meter-long hydrofoil sailing craft are capable of reaching speeds in excess of 45 knots. Hydrofoil dinghies routinely travel faster than the wind and reach speeds up to 30 knots. B...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bousquet, Gabriel David Elie Sylvain (Author), Triantafyllou, Michael S (Author), Slotine, Jean-Jacques E (Author)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE, 2020-02-27T19:48:25Z.
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Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Bousquet, Gabriel David Elie Sylvain  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Triantafyllou, Michael S  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Slotine, Jean-Jacques E  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Control of a flexible, surface-piercing hydrofoil for high-speed, small-scale applications 
260 |b IEEE,   |c 2020-02-27T19:48:25Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123873 
520 |a In recent years, hydrofoils have become ubiquitous and critical components of high-performance surface vehicles. Twenty-meter-long hydrofoil sailing craft are capable of reaching speeds in excess of 45 knots. Hydrofoil dinghies routinely travel faster than the wind and reach speeds up to 30 knots. Besides, in the quest for super-maneuverability, actuated hydrofoils could enable the efficient generation of large forces on demand. However, the control of hydrofoil systems remains challenging, especially in rough seas. With the intent to ultimately enable the design of versatile, small-scale, high-speed, and super-maneuverable surface vehicles, we investigate the problem of controlling the lift force generated by a flexible, surface-piercing hydrofoil traveling at high speed through a random wave field. We present a test platform composed of a rudder-like vertical hydrofoil actuated in pitch. The system is instrumented with velocity, force, and immersion depth sensors. We carry out high-speed field experiments in the presence of naturally occurring waves. The 2 cm chord hydrofoil is successfully controlled with a LTV/feedback linearization controller at speeds ranging from 4 to 10+ m/s. 
546 |a en 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)