Modelling and Control of Offshore Ploughing Operations

• Main Author: Voldsund, Thor-Arne
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for teknisk kybernetikk 2007
• Subjects: ntnudaim; SIE3 teknisk kybernetikk; Reguleringsteknikk
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-8816

Summary: In this thesis work, mathematical models required to simulate an offshore ploughing operation has been derived. This includes a surface vessel model, a model of the plough and its friction force due to seabed sediment and a towline model. A Dynamic Positioning control system has been derived in order to regulate the vessel to a desired location based on the plough’s desired position. A supervisor module has been derived in order to generate the vessel’s reference position in a smooth manner. And finally the total system has been implemented and simulated in the Simulink_TM environment. The surface vessel model derived in this assignment is based on an offshore supply vessel from the ”MatLab Marine GNC Toolbox” in Simulink_TM. The vertical motion of the vessel has been kept constant during simulations, based on the assumption that the buoyancy force of the vessel is large compared to the vertical towline force. The plough’s friction force due to penetration of the seabed sediment has been modeled, based on the content in reference [5], to get a realistic picture of the sediment forces involved in ploughing operations. It was found that the plough’s friction force profile changed with different operational boundaries. The boundaries are the ocean depth and the ploughing speed. For the boundaries in this assignment the resulting ploughing force equation were found to be nonlinear and shaped as a sigmoid function. In this assignment the lumped mass model has been derived for the towline’s motion and proven to give reasonably good numerical results when implemented in the Simulink TM environment. To get a realistic towline motion in seawater, a hydrodynamic quadratic damping force has been added to the equations. This hydrodynamic damping had effect on the towline’s tangential and normal motion components. The DP controller derived in this assignment consists of a PD-controller with feed forward signal from the horizontal towline tension. Feed forward signals are often influenced by noise and must be filtered to obtain low-frequency signals. In this assignment a ordinary 1st-order low-pass filter has been used in order to damp out oscillations from the towline. This filter has been proven to give a good damping effect when the towline was exposed to underwater currents. The DP controller provides good position tracking quality. The supervisor module designed in this assignment consists of a reference generator an a reference model. The supervisor module is responsible for converting input signals for the plough’s desired path into a smooth tracking signal for the vessel’s control system. The reference generator produces smaller intermediate reference signals, as input to the reference model, from a final desired vessel position. A circle of acceptance has been introduced in order to change reference values at a convenient vessel location. This has been proven to give a nice effect on the vessel’s and the plough’s behavior. The reference model has been designed with a speed saturation element, in order to bound the speed of the ploughing operation. During the case simulations it was found that by defining the operation over a longer distance, a more efficient operation is gained. When crossing longer distances the plough will reach the vessel’s speed and underwater current disturbances are small compared to the ploughing force that has gotten time to be built up. Underwater currents has great influence on the towline when the towline’s pulling force is small. In appendix A a CD can be found. On this CD this report can be found, the original work schedule, pictures and the Simulink program for the ploughing operation.