Model Free Subspace H-Infinity Control for an Autonomous Catamaran

Gabriel H. Elkaim, Bruce R. Woodley and Robert J. Kelbley

Abstract:	An autonomous surface vehicle, based on a Prindle- 19 catamaran and substituting a self-trimming vertical wing for the sail, was developed to demonstrate precision guidance and control. This vehicle, the Atlantis, was demonstrated to track straight line segments to better than 0.3 meters (one _) when already trimmed to sail along a segment, using a Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller based on an identified plant using the Observer Kalman Identification (OKID) methods. In this work, a novel controller based on model free subspace H1 control is shown to achieve similar performance levels without building an actual model of the system. These new control methods were tested and implemented on a nonlinear simulation of the catamaran which included realistic wind and current models. The model free control architecture was applied to the simulated catamaran and using Monte Carlo simulations, demonstrated very robust tracking traversal while maintaining a cross-track error of less than one meter throughout the path.
Published in:	Proceedings of IEEE/ION PLANS 2006 April 25 - 27, 2006 Loews Coronado Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	1005 - 1013
Cite this article:	Elkaim, Gabriel H., Woodley, Bruce R., Kelbley, Robert J., "Model Free Subspace H-Infinity Control for an Autonomous Catamaran," Proceedings of IEEE/ION PLANS 2006, San Diego, CA, April 2006, pp. 1005-1013. https://doi.org/10.1109/PLANS.2006.1650702
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