Integration Of State Of The Art Simulation Software Tools For Guidance And Control Of An Under Actuated Surface Autonomous Vessel

In recent years significant effort have been devoted to the development of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and Surface Autonomous Vessels (SAV) largely driven by scientific investigations pertaining to marine biology and environmental studies involving ocean atmosphere interactions. Development of low-cost satellite navigation systems, new and improved sensors, communication and computer technology, and new and improved digital control algorithms have made the realization of such autonomous platforms feasible. This paper reports simulation studies for guidance, navigation and control of a low cost under-actuated SAV in the presence of wind and ocean current disturbances. The complex nonlinear dynamics and the disturbance due to wind and ocean current are modeled using the virtual prototyping capability of Working Model 2D software package from MSC.Software. The control of thruster force and direction with realistic constraints is implemented in MATLAB. The Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) capability of the two software tools provide a powerful integrated platform for implementation and visualization of SAV motion and control performance. The algorithms have also been implemented in C. NCARR graphics package has been utilized in conjunction with the Cprogram for visualization purposes.