Compensation Control for Tool Attitude in Directional Drilling Systems

This paper is concerned with tool attitude control of directional drilling systems, which plays a key role in guaranteeing desired drilling trajectory. The coupling of inclination and azimuth motions are taken into account in the motion model, where the azimuth one involves some time-varying parameters. To ensure satisfactory control precision, an output-feedback compensation control scheme is developed based on a motion model established from Taylor expansion. Stability analysis is sequentially made for the resulting inclination and azimuth closed-loop system. At last, some simulations show that the compensation controller can achieve higher control accuracy than a proportional integral controller.