Experimental Study on the Motion Reduction Performance of a Small Suspension Catamaran Exploiting an Active Skyhook Control Strategy

A nine degrees of freedom suspension catamaran has been developed. The ship is so designed that the heave, pitch, and roll motions of the cabin are separable from those of the twin-hull. One brushed DC motor/generator (M/G) is employed at each of the four suspending locations to produce control force. An active skyhook control strategy utilizing proportional-only control is proposed to calculate the desired control input to reduce the cabin’s local vertical velocity and thus improve ride comfort. The mechanical responses of the suspension unit and the performance of the control system are verified through a group of bench tests. The ship motion responses in regular waves are investigated through a series of towing tank experiments. It is found that the proposed control strategy had significant effectiveness on motion reduction of heave and pitch of the cabin in head waves, but a small contribution to the roll motion reduction in beam waves except in the vicinity of the cabin’s natural roll frequency. In head waves, the average motion reduction ratios of the heave and pitch of the cabin both exceeded 50% at zero forward speed, which at 1.5m/s were 39% and 71%, respectively. In beam waves, the average motion reduction ratios of the heave and roll of the cabin were 62% and −57%, respectively.