Reference Model for High Performance and Low Energy Consumption Motions

This paper presents a synthetic reference model approach for high performance and low energy consumption in motions of marine crafts, i.e., surface vessels and underwater vehicles, which are guided along straight-line paths. It gives closed-loop motion control systems superior performance, with less energy consumption, when compared with similar systems fed by filter-based reference models working like pre-filters for step inputs. It presents as main features intuitive tuning, finite convergence time, and absence of accumulative errors over time. Theory and experimental results obtained running the NTNU's ROV Minerva are presented.