A PID Control Method of Rotative Speed Difference Base on New Shape Hovercraft

The hovercraft is suspended in the water by the air cushion, which has the advantages of high speed, high capacity, amphibisity performance, etc., but also leads to a high-speed steering difficulty. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a new form of hovercraft named “Qiyu”, which designs the hull to be round and arranges the dual drives in a central symmetrical manner on both sides of the hull. In addition, to make the “Qiyu” control more efficient and stable, a PID control method based on the dual drive transfer difference is proposed, which can control the drives for smooth steering. To verify the novel hovercraft, we built a bench platform that allows the “Qiyu” to be fixed above for in-situ steering testing. The results of test showed that the “Qiyu” took 8 seconds for 20° steering and 20 seconds for 40° steering. Compared with the traditional ship type and control methods, the proposed “Qiyu” has obvious advantages in steering function, and its control method has great potential for path tracking research.