Accurate and practical thruster modeling for underwater vehicles

The thruster is the crucial factor of an underwater vehicle system, because it is the lowest layer in the control loop of the system. In this paper, we propose an accurate and practical thrust modeling for underwater vehicles which considers the effects of ambient flow velocity and angle. In this model, the axial flow velocity of the thruster, which is non-measurable, is represented by ambient flow velocity and propeller shaft velocity. Hence, contrary to previous models, the proposed model is practical since it uses only measurable states. Next, the whole thrust map is divided into three states according to the state of ambient flow and propeller shaft velocity, and one of the borders of the states is defined as critical advance ratio (CAR). This classification explains the physical phenomenon of conventional experimental thrust maps. In addition, the effect of the incoming angle of ambient flow is analyzed, and Critical Incoming Angle (CIA) is also defined to describe the thrust force states. The proposed model is evaluated by comparing experimental data with numerical model simulation data, and it accurately covers overall flow conditions within ±2 N force error. The comparison results show that the new model's matching performance is significantly better than conventional models'.