Improved adaptive compression factor PSO algorithm for coordinated thrust distribution of hovercrafts

To solve the unreasonable thrust distribution, turning safety, control flexibility and excessive energy consumption of hovercrafts. A coordinated thrust distribution method of multiple control surfaces for hovercrafts named improved adaptive compression factor particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is proposed. A coordinated thrust distribution model with vector nozzle is established to describe the relationship between each control surface and its generated force(moment). More over, an improved adaptive compression factor PSO algorithm is proposed to distribute the resulting forces (moment) reasonably to each control surface. The salient features are as follows. First, an adaptive compression factor is introduced to improve the global search ability in the early algorithm stage. Second, an adaptive function is introduced to enhance the local search and convergence ability. Simulation results are given to demonstrate the proposed method can effectively distribute the resulting force (moment) to each control surface, improving the turning safety, control performance, and reducing energy consumption for hovercrafts.