Development of Discrete-Time Waterjet Control Systems Used in Surface Vehicle Thrust Vectoring

To create an autonomous surface vehicle, the microcontroller that will be responsible for the vessel’ s response will have access to both engine thrust controls and steering controls. In the case of a vehicle with waterjet propulsion, the term “controls” refers to engine RPM and nozzle angle. The latter allows the thrust vectoring. Having performed the mathematical modelling of the surface vessel, a method must be found such that the microcontroller actions on the controls create the desired outputs, based on predefined performance objectives. A commonly selected control algorithm considered an industry standard for control applications—at least from the perspective of classical control methods—is the PID control scheme. Many times, a PID control scheme is sufficient for achieving the required performance. There are also many methods that extend the functionality of the PID to robust control schemes, to accomplish more specific targets, such as noise rejection. The vast majority of all these implementations, will have to be implemented using a digital microcontroller or an FPGA. This paper assists theoretically in implementing PID controllers digitally, by elaborating on the discrete-time perspective of PID control. It also provides a test method for evaluating the algorithmic implementation.