Planing Avoidance Control for a Supercavitating Underwater Vehicle Based on Potential Functions

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on planing avoidance control for a supercavitating underwater vehicle based on the potential function method. The planing margin can be calculated using the relative position between the cavity center and vehicle center at the end of the vehicle. The planing margin was transformed into a limit variable such as the pitch angle and yaw angle limit. To prevent the vehicle attitude from exceeding the limit variable, a potential function based planing envelope protection method was proposed. The planing envelope protection system overrides commands from the tracking controller, and the vehicle attitude converges to a desired angle, in which the potential function is minimized. Numerical simulations were performed to analyze the physical feasibility and performance of the proposed method. The results showed that the proposed methods eliminated the planing, allowing the vehicle to follow tracking commands.

Keywords

• Planing avoidance
• Supercavitating underwater vehicle
• Potential function
• Planing estimation
• Planing protection