Autotuning Autopilots for Micro-ROVs

Underwater vehicles are highly nonlinear and complex systems, that makes designing autopilots extremely difficult. This paper presents autotuning as a method for tuning parameters of a micro-ROV autopilot. The main benefit of this procedure is that the model of the process does not have to be known. Autotuning is often used for industrial processes but not on marine vessels. This procedure, which is performed in closed-loop, is completely automated and enables the operator to retune an autopilot whenever ROV performance is degraded (due to different operating points, tether influence, currents, etc.). In this article we use already known different autotuning recommendations (primarily designed for Type 0 processes) with some modifications which we recommend for micro-ROVs. We also give results of using different types of PID controllers, whose parameters are being tuned. A real life demonstration on a VideoRay Pro II micro-ROV is provided.