Experimental study of a position control system for ROV

Abstract

This paper represents the experimental investigation on the position keeping control of a scaled ROV model in a basin. The dynamics of ROV motion is modeled by a simple linear equation of motion. The 3-dimensional position and heading of ROV are measured by an ultrasonic positioning system using a digital signal processor. The acoustic positioning system uses linear frequency-modulated pulses and the matched filtering technique to reduce the effect of ocean environmental noise and to improve the range resolution of the acoustic positioning system. Two control systems using a classical PID controller and a linear quadratic Gaussian controller are tested. The effects of modeling errors and measurement errors from the acoustic position measuring system on the performance of the designed control system are studied. Dynamic position keeping tests are performed for 4 degrees of freedom motion which are surge, sway, heave and yaw.