MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF THE UNDERWATER ROBOT

The fabricated robot is designed to move in 3D space. It has five thrusters and a weight attached to a
slider, optimally located to achieve six degrees of freedom (6DOF).So ,given the actuators are powerful
enough, the robot should be able to maneuver in a given confined space, maintaining any arbitrary
orientation. Fig: shows the configuration of the actuators with respect to various frames associated with
the robot.

Heave
0
Surge

Yaw

Roll
Body Fixed Frame (A) Earth Fixed Frame (E)
Sway ((E)
Pitch
0

Fig: Arrangements of the actuators and the associated frames

( + + + ( )) = (5.1)
Coordinate Frames

When analyzing the motion of underwater vehicles in 6 DOF it is convenient to define two coordinate
frames as indicated in Fig:. The moving coordinate frame 0 0 0 is conveniently fixed to the robot and
is called the body-fixed reference frame. The earth fixed frame is stationary with respect to the
earth and can be used to describe the motion of the body fixed frame and develop dynamic equations.
Table shows the notation used throughout the report for the representation and orientation of the robot.

Table: Notation used for the representation and orientation of the robot

DOF Description Linear and Positions and

Angular Vel. Fixed Angles
1 motions in 0
direction (Surge)
2 motions in 0
direction (Sway)
3 motions in 0
direction (Sway)
4 rotation about 0
axis (Roll)
5 rotation about 0
axis (Pitch)
6 rotation about 0
axis (Yaw)

Note: All the linear and angular velocities are measured w.r.t earth fixed frame whereas these vector
quantities are represented using the body-fixed frame unit vectors. For the purpose of orientation
representation, X-Y-Z fixed angle notation is used.
Dynamic Equations of the Robots Motion

In order to capture the dynamics of the robots motion, equations which describe rigid body dynamics
are considered. The primary assumptions involved are,

The robot is a rigid body which does not deform.

The earth fixed frame of reference is inertial.
These assumptions are quite justifiable and can be utilized to obtain the dynamic model of the robot
without loss of accuracy.
The robots motion in 3D space is quite complicated. The complexity can greatly be reduced by
decomposing the motion in to translational and rotational motions.

Translation
Translation or linear motion of the robot is realized by its motion in the X, Y, Z directions of the earth
fixed frame. The motion is described by the equation

Where,

0 0
= [ 0 0 ] , =
0 0

= [ ] =
. . ( )

= [ ] = . .

= [0 0 0 ] = . .

= [0 0 0 ] = . .

All the vector quantities are expressed in the body fixed frame, i.e vectors are expressed using the unit
vectors of the body fixed frame.
Rotation
The rotation of the robot is realized by its rotation around the X, Y, Z axes of the earth fixed frame. The
motion is described by the equation

o + (o) + ( + ) =

Where,

= [ ]

= ,

= [0 0 0 ] = . .

, , , have the same meanings as above. All the vector quantities are expressed in the body
fixed frame.

External Forces and Torques Acting On the Robot

Hydrodynamic Damping Forces and Torques

Hydrodynamic damping is caused by damping due to linear skin friction drag and vortex shedding
(quadratic or nonlinear damping) resulted by the linear and angular velocity of the robot .The sum of
these individual components gives the overall hydrodynamic damping effect on the robot.

In general, the damping of an underwater vehicle, moving in 6 DOF at high speed will be highly
nonlinear and coupled. Nevertheless, one rough approximation could be to assume that the vehicle is
performing a non-coupled motion, has three planes of symmetry and that terms higher than second order
are negligible. This suggests a diagonal structure for the damping matrices in the equations of
translational and rotational motions.

`() = { , , } { || || , || || , || ||}

Where

() =

, , =

|| , || , ||
=
 () depends on the instantaneous linear velocity of the robot.

`() = { , , } { || || , || || , || ||}

Where

() =

, , =

|| , || , ||
=

() depends on the instantaneous velocity of the robot.

Experimental estimation of drag (damping) coefficients is done by performing Towing Tank

experiment. But due to limited resources available at the faculty, experimental estimation of drag
coefficients was not a feasible solution. So Ansys Fluent simulation environment was used to arrive
at estimate values of drag coefficients.
Hydrodynamic Added Mass Forces and Moments

The hydrodynamic added mass forces and moments come about from the acceleration that the fluid
particles experience when they encounter the robot. The motion of the surrounding body of fluid in
response to the robot motion manifests itself as the hydrodynamic forces and moments resisting the
vehicle motion. The effect appears to be like added mass and inertia.

The relationship between the hydrodynamic forces and moments and acceleration can be represented by
the added mass or sometimes called hydrodynamics derivatives. For example, if there is acceleration
in the 0 direction, the hydrodynamic force arising from that motion can be given as:

where the hydrodynamic derivative

The single DOF equation of motion to describe the robot moving in the 0-direction can be written as

( ) =

where models all other forces acted upon the robot. Hence this added mass forces and moments can
be captured by modifying the original mass and inertia tensor.

Added mass coefficients are experimentally found using Similitude methods which are not possible
to be carried out at the faculty due to limited resources. Simulation solutions are also not bound to give
reasonably accurate results. So added mass effects are compensated through the controller action without
loss of stability or degradation of performance.

Gravitational and Buoyancy Forces and Moments

The gravitational and buoyancy forces and moments are independent of the robot motion. From
Archimedes law when fully submerged, the robots buoyancy is equal to the weight of water
displaced.

where

= ,

=
=

The gravitational force, like the buoyancy force is always directed upwards along direction
irrespective of the robots orientation. So these forces should be expressed in the body fixed frame (A)
before plugging them in the dynamic equations. X-Y-Z fixed angle notation will be used to represent the
orientation of the robot (body fixed frame (A)) with respect to the earth fixed frame (E).

Rotation Matrix

=

Where

Hence

cos( ) cos() sin() cos() sin( )

= [cos() sin() sin() sin()cos() sin() sin() sin() + cos()cos() cos()sin() ]

cos() sin() cos() + sin()sin() sin() sin() cos() cos()sin() cos()cos()

So if the gravitational force is W and the resultant of gravitational and buoyancy force acting on the
robot in the body-fixed frame (A) is ,

( ) sin()
[0
= . 0 ] = [( ) cos() sin()]
( )cos()cos()

Likewise the resultant of gravitational and buoyancy moment acting on the robot in the body fixed frame
(A) is ,

=
Forces and Torques Imposed by Actuators

The robot has five thrusters and a weight attached to a slider to actuate its motions. The slider mechanism
is not a viable method for actuation because it is going to change the inertia tensor and the center of
gravity, leading the model parameters to be time varying and making the control task extremely difficult
and complicated. So the slider mechanism was removed from the model and it was reduced to five
controllable DOF. The uncaptured pitching motion was made passively stable by making the center of
gravity located below the center of buoyancy. So it is quite reasonable to assume that the effect of
pitching motion is not going to affect the overall stability of the robot.

Force Generated by Thrusters

In general, the thruster force and moment vector will be a complicated function depending on the
vehicles linear and angular velocity vectors and the control input. This relation can be expressed as:

= 1 (, , )

= 2 (, , )

where

1 , 2 =

A first order approximation of the developed thruster force for a single-screw propeller is given
by

= 4 (0 )||
where

0 = /()

= (

But experimental results show that

= 1 + 2 /()

where 1 2 are thruster (motor+propeller) dependent constants.

Thrust moment also takes the same form as the equation. Fig shows a schematic drawing of a single
thruster with the associated entities.

F
V
Va

The interesting fact is that the advance velocity ( ) depends on the instantaneous velocity of the
thruster. To be precise

= (1 )

where is the wake number (typically: 0.1-.04)

This allows us to model the thrust force as

= 1 || 2 ||

where 1 2 are constants derived from above equations.

In order to find the corresponding thrust force of a particular thruster for a given input, the instantaneous
velocity associated with the specific thruster should be known. Finding the thrust force following this
method is not practical. So the influence of the vehicle velocity on the thrust force is considered to be
disturbance and compensated through the controller action.

Fig shows the thrust forces acting on the robot and their line of action w.r.t the body fixed frame.

4 5

If = [0 0 0 ]

sin(600 ) sin(600 ) 0 0 0
[0 0 0 ] = [cos(600 ) cos(60 0)
1 0 0 ] [1 2 3 4 5 ]
0 0 0 1 1

If = [0 0 0 ] = []