Power Distribution in Multi-thruster Propulsion System of Undersea Robotic Vehicle

The paper presents methods of power distribution in a multi-thruster propulsion system of an undersea robot. It concentrates on finding an optimal thrust allocation for desired values of propulsive forces and moments. The optimization is directed towards minimization of energy expenditures necessary to required control obtain. Special attention is paid to the unconstrained thrust allocation and techniques like the quadratic programming, the method of least squares and the method of matrix orthogonalization.