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Abstract Autonomous hovercraft systems include combination of mechanical, electrical, and electronic components which are coordinated by computer control system. Accordingly it can be considered as a typical Mechatronic system. Hovercraft is used in many applications and fields such as river transport, maritime transport, mine sweeping and military applications. These systems are still not thoroughly explored. This work, introduces design, implementation, and experimental testing of an autonomous hovercraft vehicle. A mathematical model for the hovercraft is considered and simulated using MATLAB/Simulink environment. The utilized techniques for tuning the proposed controllers are Ziegler-Nichols’ tuning method and Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO). A mathematical navigation model was introduced. A real small actual model for a hovercraft was implemented with a navigation system. This navigation system with Global Positioning System (GPS) integrated with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors are used to monitor the speed, position, and the direction of the hovercraft for the autonomous operation. Two motors with propellers are used for the lifting and thrust systems, while a third one is used for the radar movement that controls the direction. Specific resistance (Ɛ) index was used to test and compare the hovercraft performance with other transportation. This real model has been tested with the proposed navigation control system. The autonomous vehicle achieved the reference position with an error of 2 meters which is due to the GPS and IMU sensors used are cheap and relatively inaccurate. The land surface effect on hovercraft speed has been also studied experimentally and the results show that the proposed real model could move with the highest speed on sand, followed by ceramic, asphalt, flagstone, and the lowest is on a carpet. Finally, Specific resistance for different roads was estimated to get the optimum values for thrust and lift fans RPM based on the minimum specific resistance. The optimum specific resistance for the hovercraft was in the range from 0.2 to 0.73 (in the speed from 0.2 to 2 m/s). This optimum range is greater than that for ships and in the range for automobiles, aircraft, tracked vehicles and ASV and is lower than that of quadruped and hexapod. A look-up table has been prepared to select the RPM of lifting and thrust fans based on the minimum optimum specific resistance. |