Thrust Optimal Allocation for Broad Types of Underwater Vehicles

Effective thrust allocation for underwater vehicle is very important to realize complex control task. In order to generate optimal thrust allocation according to control command, a thrust optimal allocation scheme has been designed for broad type of underwater vehicles. Corresponding to horizontal and vertical thruster configuration, a force allocation model has been established to realize optimal allocation. Infinity-norm optimization has been combined with 2-norm optimization to construct a bi-criteria primal-dual neural network optimal allocation scheme. In the experiment of open frame remote operated vehicle, bi-criteria primal-dual optimization outperformed 2-norm optimization in the fault tolerance control and accurate path following. In the thrust optimal allocation simulations for underwater vehicle manipulator system, 4 vertical thrust have been optimal allocated to realize diving and attitude maintenance successfully during manipulation process. Thus the thrust optimal allocation has been verified.