Guidance and Control of Ocean Vehicles [Hardcover]

Thor I. Fossen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471941131 | ISBN-13: 978-0471941132 | Publication Date: August 1994 | Edition: 1

A comprehensive and extensive study of the latest research in control systems for marine vehicles. Demonstrates how the implementation of mathematical models and modern control theory can reduce fuel consumption and improve reliability and performance. Coverage includes ocean vehicle modeling, environmental disturbances, the dynamics and stability of ships, sensor and navigation systems. Numerous examples and exercises facilitate understanding.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a very good textbook for engineering students, in particular, research-oriented engineers interested in the control systems of marine vessels. Every university with an engineering program should have this publication available in their library - J. Sasiadek, Control Engineering Practice Vol. 7, 1999.

Fossen has written a very comprehensive textbook for graduate students on modelling and control of marine vehicles.  With so much detailed information about design of marine control systems compiled in this textbook in a systematic way, I am convinced that this will be widely used as a reference - C. G. Källström, Automatica Vol 32, 1996

From the Publisher

A comprehensive and extensive study of the latest research in control systems for marine vehicles. Demonstrates how the implementation of mathematical models and modern control theory can reduce fuel consumption and improve reliability and performance. Coverage includes ocean vehicle modeling, environmental disturbances, the dynamics and stability of ships, sensor and navigation systems. Numerous examples and exercises facilitate understanding.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 494 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (August 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471941131
• ISBN-13: 978-0471941132
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,231,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thor I. Fossen was born in 1963 in Norway and he is currently a professor of guidance, navigation and control at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) where he is teaching, mathematical modeling of aircraft, marine craft, unmanned vehicles and control theory. He received the MSc and PhD degrees in Marine Technology and Engineering Cybernetics both from NTNU. Professor Fossen is one of the founders of Marine Cybernetics (www.marinecybernetics.com) where he was Vice President R&D in 2002-2008. He received the Automatica Prize Paper Award in 2002 and the Arch T. Colwell Merit Award in 2008.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Expensive but worth it in terms of unique well presented information, May 10, 2006

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calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Guidance and Control of Ocean Vehicles (Hardcover)

This book is one-of-a-kind, as far as I have been able to determine, in that it is the only book that deals specifically with the guidance and control of marine vehicles. The book deals mainly with the modeling and control of unmanned untethered underwater vehicles (remotely operated vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles) and high speed craft (surface effect ships and foilborne catamarans). It presents clear concrete mathematical models throughout. It does not drift off into an unreadable "equation jungle" at any point.
The design of modern vehicle guidance and control systems requires knowledge of a broad field of disciplines. Some of these are vectorial kinematics and dynamics, hydrodynamics, navigation systems and control theory. To be able to design a high performance control system it is evident that a good mathematical model of the vehicle is required for simulation and verification of the design. As a result, this book contains a large number of mathematical models intended for this purpose. The book is organized as follows:
The basics of modeling are covered first. Marine vehicle kinematics and dynamics in 6 degrees of freedom are covered in chapter 2 and environmental disturbances in terms of wind, waves, and currents are covered in chapter 3.
Chapter 4 covers the stability and control system design for small unmanned underwater vehicles.
Surface ships are covered in the next two chapters. Ship dynamics, stability, and maneuvering are covered in chapter 5 and ship control system design are covered in chapter 6.
High speed craft are covered in chapter 7 by the study of control system design for surface effect ships (SES) and foilcats.
This book has very good illustrations and block diagrams, a thorough definition of mathematical terminology, and good examples throughout. There are end of chapter exercises that involve both computation and the answering of subjective essay type questions. Unfortunately, no solutions are shown in the book. The computational questions are of such a format and complexity that knowledge of MATLAB would be greatly advantageous for their solution. Although this book is clearly intended for ocean engineering students, from my experience with it any engineer who has had exposure to control theory will probably be able to understand it due to its clear presentation and numerous examples. You should also be acquainted with Lagrangian dynamics since this lends to a cleaner description of ship motion than the Newtonian case and is therefore heavily used by the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved in the simulation or control of the behavior of ocean vehicles.