Impacts of thruster configurations on the task performance of an unmanned surface vehicle

Thruster configurations play an important role on performances of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). Knowing advantages and disadvantages of each thruster configuration is then essential for designing USVs. In this paper, seven thruster configurations have been investigated for different operating styles, including the station keeping and the path following. The performances of each thruster configuration were evaluated via simulations and compared in terms of manoeuvrability, power consumption, and fault tolerance. The comparison results have demonstrated that some configurations are more suitable for the path following while some others are better for the station keeping. According to our founding, a new concept of a convertible thruster configuration has been introduced to achieve high performance in both operating styles. When it is in the station-keeping mode, this newly proposed configuration is capable of precise motion control in all three degrees of freedom on the horizontal plane. Once transformed into the path-following mode, the energy efficiency, and the fault-tolerant ability has been enhanced to suit long-range operations.

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  • English

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  • Accession Number: 01849204
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Jun 23 2022 9:16AM