DEPLOYMENT CONTROL OF A CABLE CONNECTING A SHIP TO AN UNDERWATER VEHICLE (REPRINTED FROM JOURNAL OF GUIDANCE, CONTROL, AND DYNAMICS, JANUARY 1995)

This paper describes the development of an underwater cable dynamics m odel and a realistic control system which allows deployment, regulatio n, and retrieval of an unmanned underwater vehicle tethered to a ship. An order-n algorithm for a variable mass cable subject to hydrodynami c forces and motion constraints is used to simulate the dynamics of th e system. The dynamics of the underwater vehicle is separately given w ith the cable tension nonlinearly affecting the vehicle speed. This cr eates a constraint on the cable motion that depends nonlinearly on the constraint force, a problem that is iteratively solved using constrai nt stabilization. The cable dynamics model and the controller presente d in this paper can be used to answer many design questions relating t o tethered underwater vehicles.