Control of dynamic trim for planing vessels with interceptors in terms of comfort and minimum drag

Nowadays, interceptors are often used to decrease total resistance and enhance comfort by reducing dynamic trim for high-speed planing vessels. They can be controlled manually as well as automatically by using a suitable closed-loop control system. Thus, in the present study, an automatically controllable system is presented to minimize the total resistance by reducing the dynamic trim in calm water. To reach this aim, a mathematical model which can represent the 2 degree of freedom vertical motion of a prismatic planing vessel is presented. The coefficients used in the model are calculated by using the Savitsky method. The standard dynamic trim angle and the optimum ones in terms of resistance are calculated by using the same method. For control action, a linear full state feedback control strategy (linear quadratic regulator) is applied, and instantaneous blade heights are found considering the change in forward speed. Therefore, the control-oriented model is able to change the blade height to reach the optimum trim angle in terms of the total resistance of the vessel for different forward speeds and speed profiles. The results show that the designed linear quadratic regulator control strategy is successful for reference trim tracking problems.