Course Control of Unmanned Wave Glider With Heading Information Fusion

The unmanned wave glider (UWG) is a new kind of wave-powered unmanned marine vehicle for persistent marine environment monitoring. However, the course control of UWG is unusual due to the special multijoint structure and special operating principle. Control methods for single body marine vehicles cannot guarantee the control performance of UWG. In this paper, first, we propose the dynamic linearized model of UWG's multiheading system to describe the interrelation of Float's heading, Glider's heading, and system course. The dynamic linearized model is real-time corrected by dynamic I/O data of the controlled system in the sailing process of UWG. Then, the heading information fusion strategy is proposed to calculate the desired heading of Glider. Finally, via direct heading control of Glider, the course control of UWG is realized indirectly. Aiming at the "Ocean Rambler" UWG, simulation experiments and sea trials in Qingdao sea area are carried out. Simulation and sea trial results demonstrate that the proposed dynamic linearized model of UWG's multiheading system and heading information fusion strategy improve the course control performance of UWG significantly.