Procedures for Manoeuvrability Characterization: From Ships to Marine Robots

The work aims at presenting an extension of the ITTC standard procedures, employed for the identification of vessel characteristics and performance, towards marine robotic platforms. An automatic system for the execution of standard manoeuvring procedures is exploited to perform an autonomous data gathering and system identification. Execution of zig-zag, turning circle and pull-out manoeuvres are described and experimental data are reported with respect to the employment of the SWAMP ASV. A subsequent data analysis is performed to obtain a dynamic model that can be exploited for motion estimation and synthesis/adaptation of control schemes.