Samenvatting

The company Epomat and NHL Hogeschool are currently working on developing a new solar boat. This new boat will sail in the Top Class competition called “Dutch solar challenge”, a ranking dominated by highly specialized firms and universities. In order to get a better place in the competition, this solar boat needs to be equipped with a new technology for decreasing drag called hydrofoil.
What are hydrofoils? The hydrofoil technology is capable of making the boat run faster. A hydrofoil is a wing placed underneath a boat to lift the hull out of the water. As speed gains, the hydrofoils lift the hull of the boat out of the water, decreasing friction in the water and thus allowing higher speeds. There are two types of hydrofoils: a self-stabilizing water piercing configuration and a fully submerged configuration that requires a controller.
The solar boat to be developed is designed with a fully submerged configuration hydrofoil; therefore, a controller is necessary. The researcher is responsible for designing the control system and writing the software of the control system. The whole system is designed as an automatic control system via using PID controller. The researcher designs the action of each tuning value of the PID controller. Different tuning value should be designed to effect on the height, pitch and roll value of the boat separately. Different sensors to detect the position of the boat are applied. The data got from the sensors to the desired point needs to compare. Correcting the difference via the controller to lift the hull out of water, keeps the boat stable and maintains it at the constant height.
The report is divided into 6chapters: Introduction, Theoretical framework, Method, Result, Discuss and Conclusion & Recommendations. The product is designed under the design method of V-model. System design, subsystem design, component design and detailed design of the control system are included. The objective of the report is to provide a clear description of the execution of the project and detailed design of the hydrofoil control system.
As result of the research and regarded as an added value for the company Epomat as well for NHL Hogeschool, are the facts that the accuracy of the sensors was improved and the controller system was designed in particular. Based on the test result of the sensors and the test model, the software to handle the data got from the sensors was written and optimized until the test model can work and meet the requirements. The whole system was divided into two major parts, stability and height control subsystem. A test model was built for testing the stability subsystem and after several test runs with the test model it was proved that this subsystem meets the requirements. The other height subsystem was designed with a test plan.
Due to the lack of time and that the hydrofoil was not finished in building, the whole system was not tested in practice yet. For further research it is recommended, the whole system should be tested by more realistic sea trials in order to optimize the whole system design.