Auto-heading controller for an autonomous sailboat

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2010

Authors

Cruz, NA (Author) FEUP; Alves, JC (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: OCEANS'10 IEEE Sydney, OCEANSSYD 2010

OCEANS'10 IEEE Sydney, OCEANSSYD 2010

Sydney, NSW, 24 May 2010 through 27 May 2010

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge

Scopus - 44 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-007-W7A

DOI: 10.1109/oceanssyd.2010.5603882

Abstract (EN): This paper addresses the design and implementation of feedback controllers for the direction of autonomous robotic sailboats. In order to design such a controller, it is important to determine a model for the sailboat dynamics during turns. However, there are many uncontrollable factors that may affect the direction of the sailboat, which make it difficult to obtain an accurate model and require a lot of sensors to feed a proper controller. Instead, we assume a rather simple model relating the most important variables and concentrate on data that can easily be available with simple low-cost sensors, compensating the lack of accuracy of the model with the robustness of the controller. We describe our approach to extract the parameters of such a dynamic model using data obtained in field experiments and we show how to use this model to tune a PI controller. As a case study, we use the FASt vehicle, a 2.5 m long robotic sailing boat capable of fully autonomous navigation through a set of predefined marks. Experimental results show the performance of the designed controller. © 2010 IEEE.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific