Copyright @ IFAC Control in Transportation Systems,

Braunschweig, Germany, 2000

NON-LINEAR DESIGN OF AN IGV-FAN SERVO SYSTEM

FOR SURFACE EFFECT SHIPS

Sergio M. Savaresi*, Daniele Bertin**, Sergio Bittanti*,

*Politeenieo di Mi/ano, Dipartimento di Elettroniea e In!ormazione, Piazza Leonardo da

Vinei,32, 20133, Milano, Italy. E-Mail: {savaresi;bittanti}@eletpolimi.it.
** Calzoni s.p. a.. Automation and Systems Division, Via Solari, 19, 20/44 Milano - Italy.
E-Mail: dbertin@rivaealzoni.it.

Abstract. In this paper, the problem of designing a servo system for Surface Effect Ship
applications, based upon a centrifugal fan complemented with an Inlet Guide Vane (IGV),
is considered. An IGV-fan system, at constant fan speed, can be regarded as a single-input
(the opening of the intake valve) single-output (the delivered air flow) dynamical system,
affected by a measurable disturbance (the pressure at the output). The IGV-fan system is
characterised by non-trivial non-linearities. For the servo design, a back-box direct method
which makes use of I/O measurement only has been used. Such a method provides
satisfactory performances when used for the design of the approximate inverse of the IGV-
fan system. Copyright ~ 2000 IFAC
Key words. Surface Effect Ship; Inlet Guide Vanes; nonlinear systems; inverse system.

I. INTRODUCTION A major advantage of Surface Effect Ships over other

In the realm of high-speed' ship transportation, the
concept of Surface Effect Ship (S.E.S.) raised a
considerable industrial interest (see e.g. Bertin et af.
2000, Butler 1995, Fossen 1994, S""rensen and
Egeland 1995). Surface Effect Ships have a
catamaran-type hull form under which a pressurised
air cushion is kept. Pressurised air is supplied into the
cushion by a lift fan system and it is retained by the
rigid side-hulls and by two flexible structures, called
seals or skirts, at the fore and aft ends of the cushion
(in Fig.l, a S.E.S. seen from below is sketched). The
over-pressure lifts the craft (about 80% of its weight
is supported by the excess air cushion pressure) so
reducing its resistance in calm water.
..-------
~ within the air cushion. As a consequence, a major
. ..-----
side hulls
stem seal
Fig.l. The underside of a S.E.S.
air cushion vessels (hovercrafts, for instance) is that
the rigid side-hulls permit the use of water
propulsion: waterjets or propellers can be used.
Moreover, this type of vessel is known to offer a
high-quality ride in heavy sea states, compared with
conventional catamarans. However, in low and
moderate sea states, problems of discomfort arise, due
to high-frequency vertical accelerations induced by
the resonance between the incoming waves and the air
cushion plenum. Hence, the design of a control
system for the active damping of such a vibration
effect (Ride Control System - RCS) is strongly
required (see e.g. Bertin et af. 2000). This is typically
obtained by suitably modulating the air flow delivered
by fans and vent-valves int%ut of the air cushion.
A typical feature of Surface Effect Ships is that a
large amount of the overall power consumption is due
to the large lift fans which maintain the over-pressure
issue in the design of a S.E.S. is the choice of a wise
strategy of employing the fans (Bertin et af. 1997).
A unique feature of the fans employed in a S.E.S. is
that they must be able to rapidly change their working
condition (i.e. the amount of pressurised air flow they
deliver), in order to make it possible the attenuation
of the oscillations in the air cushion pressure. Since it
is impossible to vary the output of a fan quickly (up to
2Hz for large vessels) by varying the fan speed, the

601
only option for dynamic vanatlon is to modifv the
fan's geometric characteristics at constant shaft speed.
A possibility is to act on the air-intake system, by
using the so-called Inlet Guide Vanes (IGVs). This
has been recently explored e.g. in Eden and Cox
(1995).
In this paper. we deal with the problem of designing a
duct (it commonly happens that quite a long air duct
separates the output of the fan from the air cushion
plenum; the air accumulation within such a duct is the
main responsible of the dynamical behaviour of the
overalllGV-fan system).
chamber

servo system for the regulation of the air flow Palm;

delivered by a centrifugal fan complemented with an
duct
intake damping valve, for S.E.S. applications
Pl
(Osbome 1995). The main goal of such a servo is to -P'*'-t--.. q".,

make the relationship between the required air flow at OUTLET

DIFFUSE
the output of the fan and the actual air flow delivered
by the fan as close as possible to the identity, over a
suitable frequency range, despite the disturbance
....... __ ... __ .. . .. __ < AIR
given by the oscillations of the air cushion pressure "IRDUCT : CUSHIO

P, . In particular, our attention will focus on the non-

linear relationship between the intake area (say 04/(;1) Fig.3. A simple dynamical model of an IGV-fan
of the IGV, and the pressurised air flow delivered by system.
the IGV-fan system (say q"u,)'
For the servo design, we will resort to a direct design For modelling purposes, the IGV-fan system can be
method which has the feature of leading to the inverse diagramatically represented as illustrated in Fig.3.
of a non-linear system without knowledge of a The meaning of the variables appearing in Fig.3
mathematical model, but using input/output data only. and/or in the model below is the following:
q,. : air flow through the fan;
The outline of the paper is as follows: in Sect.2 a first-
principle model of the IGV-fan system is derived, q",,,: air flow delivered into the air cushion:
which will be used as a plant simulator in the rest of Pm: fan back pressure;
the paper, while in Sect.3, the classical design
PI: pressure at the fan output;
approach based on a linearized model is first
explored. The results of such an analysis indicate the
P2: air chamber pressure;
need to shift from the linear to the non-linear setting, Palm: atmospheric pressure (constant);
at least for the neutralisation of the non-linear P, : air cushion pressure;
relationship relating the intake IGV area and the A/(n : IGV intake area;
delivered air flow. The non-linear approach to the
p : air density (supposed to be constant);
servo design will be developed in SectA.
'/.
y: iso-entropic coefficient;
V volume of the chamber;
Inle. Guide Vanes LS: Inertia coefficient
A",,,: opening area of the outlet diffuser.
(the inertia coefficient is given, in the ideal model, by
the length/cross-section ratio of the duct). The IGV-
fan system can be described by the following
equations:

IGI-Valve. q,(r) = A/(;,(r)~2P(P,,,m - Pm(t)); (la)

Fan. PI(t)-Pm(r)=f(q,(t): (lb)

p (.1Ir cushIon pr,,;ssuf\:) Duet. LSq, (t) = PI (r) - Pc (r) : (lc)

pI'
Fig.2. A centrifugal fan complemented with an IGV Air chamber: --(-) Pe(t) = q,(t) - q"u,(t): (I d)
,"P: t
system, for S.E.S. applications.
Ollllet diffuser. q,,,,,(r) = A"u,~2p(p:(t) - P, (t). (le)
2. THE lGV-FAN SYSTEM
As can be seen, the above system is constituted by
The IGV-fan system this paper deals with is
three algebraic relations Ia). (I b), and (I e, and by
schematically depicted in Fig.2. It is constituted by an two differential equations le) and (Id.
Inlet Guide I'one (IGV), a centrifugal/an. and an air Correspondingly. q, and P: are the system state

602
variables, A Ii ;,' is the control input, q",,, is the output
variable, and p, is the measurable disturbance.
It is worth noticing that, in the case of the IGV-fan
servo system, finding a reliable first principle model
is still a controversial issue. In this regard we point
out that the "first-principle" model (I) will be used
here only as a simulated test plant for a number of
different goals.
The main objective of the servo we wish to design is
the "standard" servo-systems goal, namely to make
the relationship between the desired value of the
output variable. say q,ef (t), and the actual output
q",,,(t) as close as possible to the identity (over a
suitable frequency range, compatible with the system
tangent model of (I) around a steady-state condition.
and we have tested via numerical simulations the
performance achievable by the servo system designed
on a linear-approximation basis.
Given an equilibrium condition of (\) (characterised
by q, = q"III' pz, P" and A/0 ,), the first-order
(linear) approximation of the model (I) can be easily
derived as follows (below, given a variable x, the
symbol &- denotes the difference between the actual
value of x and its nominal steady-state value, x):
(2a)
Jp, -Jpm = K/>q, (2b)
LSJq, = Jp, -Jp2 (2c)

dynamics). Since the output variable q",,, is not K 4Jp2 = tSq, - tSq"u, (2d)
measurable for control purposes (whereas a reliable
tSq"u' = K sJp, - K SJp2 (2e)
measure of the disturbance is available), the servo
_7
system we propose belongs to the class of the I
feedforward controllers, complemented with a direct K 7 =-~-.
- P A/c;,
compensation of the measurable disturbance (see
FigA).
K] = q(q,)! ' K 4 = P!' , K s =-Au/lI~2(- ~ _)'
About this aspect, a short remark is due. One of the ;q,. '1,=", YfJ2 P2 p,
most common paradigms of control theory is that a
By Laplace transforming (2), an input/output linear
feed forward control structure cannot, in general,
representation of the system (2), can be given as
guarantee the high-performance of a genuine
follows:
feedback controller; nonetheless, it has to be pointed
out that, in this case, the main goal is simply that of Transfer function from JAJ(i" to tSq"u,:
reducing the non-linear and dynamical behaviour of
an IGV-fan system, and not that of obtaining a high-
performance reference-tracking loop. As a matter of (3)
F.",.<s)
fact the IGV-fan system can be regarded as an
actuator of the main feedback control loop (the Ride
Control System Loop) having the aim of reducing the
Transfer functionfram Jp, to tSquu,'-
vertical accelerations of the sh ip.
p,

F;(s)=Ko
IGYFAI'
q"'j
--..
Servo
System .. SYSTEM
(non linear)
q"",

lli\'rt\N I.",}-.AR srRvo SYS"llM 1/,.1')
1. __ . ... __. __._,- -_._ .. __ ._-----"---_._------- -----.,....--------_._,
, .
FigA. Servo system external structure. 'R,(,)=-I'
:. .
(-,i1I

3. A LINEAR APPROACH TO SERVO DESIGN

System (I) is given by a set of non-linear equations.
However, one could try to set up a linear
approximation, and use it for control design purposes,
Fig. 5. The IGV-fan linear servo system.
according to a classical design paradigm of control
theory. Obviously, this procedure makes sense if the
first-order approximation is adequately accurate. or. By using the transfer functions (3)-(4), one can design
stated another way, if the working range is maintained the "linear" servo system as it is illustrated in FigS
within a close neighbourhood of the steady-state Obviously, a direct inversion of (3) would lead to a
condition around which the model has been violation of causality: this is why block R,(s) is in
linearized. To check the applicability of such a
rationale in our case. we have considered the linear fact given by Fj",(sr' 8(s), where 8(s) is a 2nd-

603
order low-pass filter B(s) = fJ2 /(s + fJ)2 .
We now test the extent to which the linear
modelisation provided by these transfer functions are
a fair approximation of our original equations (I).
The comparison was performed by means of many
simulation trials, one of which is presented below.
Simulation trial
Consider the model (I) with the following parameter
set (in standard units),
[P",m,p,y,V,LS,AuJ = [10 130QI.2,1.4,200,256, 8],
and take
f(qJ = -165870q; + 33030q,. + 15740,
as a centrifugal fan characteristic. In correspondence
to the following steady-state condition
nominal value plus a band-limited (0+2Hz)
signal t5A I01 , constituted by the superposition
of a large number of incorrelated sinusoids.
The corresponding output Oq~~:') of the system
is compared with the output Oq,~;;,> of the
model described by the transfer function (8),
when fed with the same input t5A/0 /. The
selected t5A 1G1 covers the range [- 1.4;5.1],
which is the realistic range of variation of the
IGY intake area (see e.g. Win and Win 1995).
The two outputs are superimposed in Fig.7a.
(5)
"'I
(6)

q, =qu", = 275 (Kg/s)

P",m = 101300(Pa)

PI =152 =11642+PUlm (Pa) (7)

15, = 11150+ P",m (Pa)
A/(;I' = 2.6406 (m 2 ) Fig.6. The reference input Oq "I (continuous line), and
the linearized model (I) in the neighbourhood of the system output /iq,." (dashed line) .
steady-state condition (7) is characterised by the 2oor---r---r---r--____,~-____,--____,

following transfer functions:

'50 L __
F (s)= 78705 (8)
'K" s2+190.5s+1279
2
F (s) = - 0.279s -1.8166s - 23 (9)
, s2+190.5s+1279
In order to appreciate the extent to which this linear
modelisation can capture the non-linear dynamics of
the true system, the linear servo system having the
structure of Fig.5 has been fed with two signals (the
reference input, Oqrcf' and the measurable Fig.7a. The output of the non-linear plant (I) (dashed
disturbance, t5p, ), both constituted by the line), and the output of its linear counterpart
(continuous line), when fed with the same
superposition of a large number of uncorrelated
sinusoids operating over the frequency range 0+2Hz. input aA/GV, and apc=O.
20r----r-----,----r-----,---____,~-__,
The parameter fJ of the low-pass filter B(s) has
15 ------- --+-~-_,r_+_-------- --
been set to the value fJ = 100 (so that the filter has
10

two poles beyond the main dynamics of Fij["(s)). The

results of such a simulation trial are depicted in Fig.6,
where the system output and the reference input are -5

represented. It is clear that the servo system designed -10

on the basis of the tangent model basis does not 15

I
provide satisfactory performance (the tracking error - --- -1---
may reach the 100% of the reference signal).
In order to locate the main source of non-linearity, the
-25 ---- -+
-300L---~---',0:----,L5-----:'::20-----:'2L5
--..J
30
Time
following additional simulation experiments have
been done: Fig.7b. The output of the non-linear plant (I) (dashed
line), and the output of its linear counterpart
(a) Set p, constant at its nominal value (t5p, = 0) (continuous line). when fed with the same
in system (I), and let A j(;/ be given by its input a Pc, and aA/GV=O.

604
(b) Set A/eil constant at its
(OA"il = 0 ) in system (I), and let p, be given
by its nominal value plus a band-limited
(0+2Hz) signal op" constituted by the
superposition of a large number of
uncorrelated sinusoids. The corresponding
output Oq,~;~J I of the system is compared with
the output Oq~,;;/ of the model described by the
transfer function (9), when fed with the same
input op,. The selected op, covers the
range [-2000;2000], which is the realistic
range of variation of the air cushion pressure,
when the Ride Control System is active. The
two outputs are superimposed in Fig.7b.
From Figs.7, it is apparent that, while the linear
approximation is fair for the op, - Oq",,, relationship,
the intrinsic non-linearity in the OAJ(il - Oq"u, effect
cannot be neglected.
4. NON-LINEAR SERVO DESIGN
Motivated by the analysis developed in the previous
section, we will now address the problem of
designing a servo system constituted by a genuinely
non-linear inverter of the OA"il' - Oq"UI relationship,
and by a linear compensator of the measurable
disturbance p, (the same used in the scheme depicted
in Fig.5). We will focus on a digital implementation
of the servo system. This last choice is motivated both
by technological reasons (Il-processor-based
controllers have been the subject of an impressive
growth in the last decade, by virtue of their power and
flexibility in implementing control rules), and by
control design reasons (the design of black-box
controllers, on the basis of input/output samples, is
more natural in the realm of discrete-time systems).
Thus, the general scheme of the servo system is that
in Fig.8.
IGY-FAI' SERVO SYSTEM
bq~~ Non-/lnrar ~ non-linc:lf
-U
"'n,!,hn,
t
L
Inn'rler
-' ZOH
DIGITAL CO" TROL SYSTEM
Fig.8. The IGV-fan-based servo system.
We first point out that - as already noticed - the first-
principle model developed in Sect.2 has to be
regarded only as a realistic approximation of the IGV-
fan I/O behaviour: as a matter of fact. no well-
established models of IGV-fan systems are currently
nominal value available; this is why, for control design purposes, it
is much wiser to rely on methods based on I/O
measurements (see e.g. Guardabassi and Savaresi
2000, Nijmeijer and Savaresi 1998, Savaresi and
Guardabassi 1998, and references cited therein) rather
than on methods based on an analytic model of the
process (see Isidori 1989).
The data-based method we propose is very simple,
and can be outlined in the following steps:
Consider the system (I) with the same parameter
set and operating condition (5)-{7) considered in
Sect.3. For digital control purposes the system is
complemented with a Zero Order Hold (ZOH)
and two sampling units (with sampling time
T, = 0.05), as it is indicated in Fig.8 (for the
sake of conciseness, in the rest of the paper we
will use the symbol x{k) in place of x(T,k), to
indicate the sampled version of a signal x{t.
Collect a set of I/O data. To this purpose, the
IGV-fan system (I) has been fed with a test
input, say oA/(il (.), while keeping op, constant
and equal to zero. The "test" signal, oA/(;1 (k)
(k= I,2, ... ,4000) is a 200 seconds signal
constituted by the sum of a large number of
uncorrelated sinusoids (within the frequency
range 0+2Hz) suitably warped to match the
range A"iI E D Uil (D/(il = [1.3;7.5]) of the
IGV intake area; the lower bound of D Uil
corresponds to the limit of stability of the IGV-
fan system (I), while its upper bound is the
maximum allowed opening area of the IGV-
valve.
Once the test input has been designed, the
second important choice to make is the structure
of the non-linear inverter. Its general structure
has been chosen as (NARX model):
b".(1)
where g is a parametric function, and iJ is the
parameter vector. The parametric family of non-
linear functions which has been used in this
particular case is the class of the radial basis
networks (see e.g. Binanti and Picci 1996,
IG\r.n bq".A I) Sjoberg 1995). It receives as inputs the current
value of the reference signal (the measured
s:,-Sh:m
output q"III)' and a (small) number of past values
of the same signal (note that the case a=O
corresponds to a static inverter).
.
Find the "optimal" parameter vector iJ as the
minimum of the performance index
namely
605

As for the complexity of the controller, we have seen
that a good compromise between performance and
optimization complexity is given by a=4.
Finally, we have tested the performance of the entire
"non-linear" servo system depicted in Fig.8.
Precisely, with reference to the scheme of Fig.8, the
block labelled as "Non-linear inverter" is replaced by
the function g designed via the method described
above, and the block labelled as "op, compensator" is
the digital counterpart of the transfer function (9).
Two band limited (072Hz) signals, 8qref..t) and 8Pc(t)
were injected in the servo system, and the
correspondent output, 8qout(t), was recorded for
t E [0;50]. In Fig.IO the reference signal (8qref..t
and the measured output (8qour(t are compared. It is
apparent that, despite the non-trivial non-linear
behaviour of the IGV-fan system, and despite the
disturbance due to deviations of the cushion pressure
from its nominal value, the output of the servo system
accurately tracks the reference signal.
- .- - --
~
.- Ai
,
I\~
f----
I VI
- /\1 ~ I
I~
0
VV: ItJI r:L_
o~
0
, ---
~.
'--
..
- - - -- - --
, -- ---- -- --- - - - - - - - -
, .,
" " " " " "
Fig.IO.The reference signal Oqref..t) (dashed line) and
the measured output Oqout(t) (continuous line.
Notice the almost perfect overlapping between
the two signals.
5. CO CLUSIONS
In this paper, the problem of designing a servo system
based upon a centrifugal fan complemented with an
Inlet Guide Vane, for S.E.S. applications, has been
addressed. It has been shown that one of the main
problems connected with the servo system design is
that of coping with the non-trivial non-linearities of
the IGV-fan system. To this purpose, an easy-to-use
and efficient method for the approximate inversion of
a non-linear plant has been presented, and applied to
the design of a non-linear part of the servo.
This work, however, is only preliminary. Both the
issues of the robustness with respect to parameter
variations and the dynamic behaviour of the overall
closed-loop system have not been addressed in this
work. However, the high-performance results
obtained in the simplified (but genuinely non-linear)
setting considered here are quite encouraging with
respect to the potentiality of the proposed technique.
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.. ---t---
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