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An Experimental Validation of a Robust Controller with the VAIMOS Autonomous Sailboat

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Robotic Sailing 2012

Abstract

A sailboat is a strongly non-linear system that has, however, been proven to be easily controllable. Indeed, its mechanical design has been evolved over thousands of years with two main concerns: having a fast, reliable and efficient vehicle which can be easily controlled by humans. This article describes the functionality, the validation process and the performance of a simple controller, inspired by what navigators do, through tests made on the sailboat robot VAIMOS built by IFREMER for oceanography. This controller requires tweaking a few parameters with real physical meaning while ensuring accurate trajectory following, needed to make oceanographic measurements in a specific area.

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Le Bars, F., Jaulin, L. (2013). An Experimental Validation of a Robust Controller with the VAIMOS Autonomous Sailboat. In: Sauzé, C., Finnis, J. (eds) Robotic Sailing 2012. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33084-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33084-1_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33083-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33084-1

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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