Parameter identification and validation analysis for a small USV

In this paper a manoeuvre based identification process and parameter analysis of a small unmanned surface vehicle (USV) is described. The objective is to identify unknown hydrodynamic and propulsion parameters in one step by means of a series of different manoeuvres. Methods on the basis of the Fisher information matrix are used for the quality analysis of the parameter estimates. Furthermore, a process for reduction of parameters is deployed. It is also shown that no thrust force measurements are required and the complete parameter set can be considered concurrently, avoiding the risk of suboptimal results when using a sequential approach.