Dynamic Positioning - Control Systems

Control Systems

In the beginning PID controllers were used and today are still used in the simpler DP systems. But modern controllers use a mathematical model of the ship that is based on a hydrodynamic and aerodynamic description concerning some of the ship's characteristics such as mass and drag. Of course, this model is not entirely correct. The ship's position and heading are fed into the system and compared with the prediction made by the model. This difference is used to update the model by using Kalman filtering technique. For this reason, the model also has input from the wind sensors and feedback from the thrusters. This method even allows not having input from any PRS for some time, depending on the quality of the model and the weather. This process is known as dead reckoning.

The accuracy and precision of the different PRSs is not the same. While a DGPS has a high accuracy and precision, a USBL can have a much lower precision. For this reason, the PRS’s are weighted. Based on variance a PRS receives a weight between 0 and 1.

Read more about this topic:  Dynamic Positioning

Famous quotes containing the words control and/or systems:

    Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it won’t be for our benefit but for the authorities’. To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it.
    Germaine Greer (b. 1939)

    What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
    Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)