Generic Navigation and Control Methods for Classes of Unmanned Surface Vehicles

The paper discusses methods to design modules of a generic guidance, navigation and control system, which can be applied to different types of unmanned surface vehicles. It bases on a generalized dynamic model of the vehicle motion, which is used for predicting states, synthesis of heterogeneous controllers and vehicle guidance. For conventional operations of unmanned surface vehicles, e.g. for hydrographic surveys, it is sufficient to consider the motion of the vehicle reduced to the movement on the nearly undisturbed water surface. In contrast to that, ocean-going vehicles, used to localize underwater vehicles or work as communication node, operate even in heavy sea states, where the guidance, navigation and control objectives are influenced by large roll and pitch angles of the vehicle. Both, operational areas and tasks as well as the vehicle design obviously differ significantly from each other. Based on the generalized model, the design of a two degrees of freedom motion control will be carried out. In addition, the navigation module bases on generic methods to enable an efficient combination of various sensor setups. The paper concludes with experimental trials using a catamaran applied for coastal survey operations and a semi-submerged ocean-going vehicle acting as deep-sea to air communication node.