Design a Stable PID Controller for Dynamic Positioning in FPSO Vessels

Abstract

Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels for offshore operations use a Dynamic Positioning system (DP), which includes a controller to correct the position variation of the FPSO subjects to internal and external disturbances. Most of these positioning systems use a classic Proportional Integral Derivative controllers (PID) and their different variants, where the control law is determined adjusting three control gains: proportional, integral and derivative, usually heuristic techniques are employed to determine the control gains. In this study we propose a theoretical tuning procedure in order to determine the control gains in a simple way, analyzing the boundary conditions in the matrices of the FPSO dynamic model, as well as the relation they have with the control gains for the FPSO motion in an adjust domain. In order to guarantee the semi-global stability of the closed-loop system, a stability proof in the Lyapunov sense is carried out. The theoretical results were validated in numerical simulations using Matlab. Theses results show that the methodology presented in this work is highly satisfactory for the control gain selection in the trajectory tracking control problem for FPSO motion.