Investigation of a 2-DOF Active Magnetic Bearing Actuator for Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Thruster Application

In this work, a novel application of Active Magnetic Bearing (AMB) is proposed to integrate AMB in the Magnetically Coupled Thruster (MCT) assembly for underwater application. study, 2-Degree-Of-Freedom (DOF) developed and investigated MCT an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV). The paper presents detailed electro-mechanical modeling in-house system. intractable problem rotor suspension rotation with opposing pairs electromagnets considered. A Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller designed analyzed frequency domain stabilization open-loop unstable MCT. performance specifications controller, such as reference tracking disturbance rejection are achieved evaluated through real-time implementation controller. compensator also performed reasonably well during dynamic operations, i.e., when rotor-propeller was spun at 1500 rpm. This speed needed generate thrust 40–45 N up 1 m/s forward velocity, which necessary propel UUV under consideration. By deploying assembly, it anticipated that problems associated conventional directly coupled thruster operating harsh environment, water ingress into electronics compartment, rusting, lubrication, vibrations would be eliminated.