摘要：AbstractThis paper presents the development of a sort of UUV platform and its motion control method to overcome strong sea current. To minimize the hydrodynamic damping, the vehicle has a flattened ellipsoidal exterior. And four horizontal thrusters, each of them has the same thrust dynamics in both forward and reverse directions, are mounted symmetrically so as to distribute the vectored thrust forces almost uniformly in all of horizontal directions. Three vertical thrusters are also mounted to handle the vehicle’s roll, pitch and heave motions. Control laws for these three vertical thrusters are designed separately from the ones applied to the four horizontal thrusters. Numerical simulations, where hydrodynamic coefficients are calculated through both of theoretical and empirically-derived formulas, and experiments in the circulating water channel are carried out to demonstrate the vehicle’s capability of overcoming strong currents.
