Guidance, Navigation and Control of Dynamic Positioning Systems

Course Overview

Dynamic Positioning (DP) system is an integrated innovation product of multiple disciplines such as automation, sensors, and hydrodynamics. Its system architecture is relatively complex, and the learning process involves multidisciplinary knowledge. This course focuses on explaining its software and hardware systems and control algorithms, which mainly consist of three parts: guidance, navigation, and control.

This course adopts a combination of classroom lectures and group assignments. Through this course, students can master the core control system design theories and methods of DP systems, complete the construction of a full DP control closed loop through group assignments, learn and initially master basic automation theories such as sensor filtering and path tracking control, and enhance their interest in intelligent marine engineering.

Instructor

Zhengru Ren, Assistant Professor

Course Information

Credits: 2
Total Hours: 32 hours (30 hours of lectures, 2 hours of discussion)
Semester: Fall semester (Weeks 9-16)
Assessment Method: Examination
Applicable Majors: Marine Technology and Engineering (Civil Engineering and Water Conservancy, Electronic Information) and Marine Energy Engineering (Civil Engineering and Water Conservancy)

Course Objectives

The course keeps up with the development trend of automation and intelligence in the marine engineering field, enhances graduate students’ understanding of cutting-edge high technologies in marine engineering, and cultivates their international vision and cross-innovation ability. These training objectives are in line with the concept of high-end, intelligent and international marine engineering research institute.

Course Features

This course is offered to fill the gap in related courses in China and Tsinghua University, benchmarking against the graduate course TMR4240-Marine Control Systems I offered by the Department of Marine Technology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology
To alleviate the problem that students of the Marine Engineering Research Institute lack basic control theory knowledge, this course focuses on teaching basic control theory and will combine with the instructor’s background to teach students how to shift from learning based on mechanics in civil engineering and water conservancy to learning based on mathematical automation-related theories
This course is a follow-up course to “Marine Operations and Motion Simulation”. Through the study of “Marine Operations and Motion Simulation” in weeks 1-8, students can build a 6-degree-of-freedom ship model by themselves; this course will be offered in weeks 9-16, focusing on building a control algorithm framework for the above model, so that students have a clear understanding of the entire control system research process

Prerequisites

If you have taken the course “Marine Operations and Motion Simulation”, it will be beneficial for understanding this course and using MATLAB/Simulink programming.

Course Content

This course mainly focuses on three main parts of DP systems: propulsion system, measurement system and control system.

Measurement System: Focuses on sensor classification, sampling and data processing methods
Control System: Explains the basics of nonlinear control theory, navigation and guidance methods, methods of filtering position data to remove high-frequency interference, path tracking control algorithm design, and propeller control algorithm design
Propulsion System: Mainly explains the thrust allocation problem
Extended Content: According to actual operating conditions, explains sea state estimation algorithms; extends knowledge related to thruster-assisted dynamic positioning and breakage detection

Finally, students will design assignments based on the knowledge learned in this course and present them.

Textbooks and References

Main Textbooks

[1] Fossen, T.I., 2011. Handbook of marine craft hydrodynamics and motion control. John Wiley & Sons. [2] Sørensen, A.J., 2012. Marine control systems. Propulsion and Motion Control of Ships and Ocean Structures