Guidance & Control Strategies for UUVs

• Main Author: Kørte, Steffen Østensjø
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for marin teknikk 2011
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-16228

Focus on safety and effectiveness in the oil and gas industry has increased the need for advanced control system for underwater vehicles. For remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) effectiveness when conducting deep sea operation is extremely critical both concerning safety and cost. For AUVs conducting survey missions, energy and collision avoidance are critical factors. A control system for ROV Minerva is being developed through the AUR-Lab at the Institute of Marine Technology at NTNU. Several guidance features have been investigated, with respect to different mission the ROV should be able to do. A guidance system has been developed, where basic functions such as a DP system with station keeping and trajectory tracking was the focus of the project thesis of the author. More advanced functionality with respect to path following has been developed, where focus have been set on different strategies to apply when the ROV is following a path. Simulations based on different strategies for following a lawnmower pattern have been simulated and evaluated with respect to time, energy and control objective. Full scale experiments with the ROV Minerva show that especially the forward speed versus arc radius is an important issue. The results show that the ROV is able to follow a path made out of straight lines and circular arcs, and particularly lawnmower patterns. For an underwater vehicle to be able to operate autonomously, stationary and dynamic obstacles have to be taken into account. A collision avoidance system based on local collision avoidance algorithms has been implemented, where focus has been on reactivity with respect to unmapped obstacles. The collision avoidance system has been through initial full scale tests with ROV Minerva, and the result are promising.