Wave Heave Compensation Based on An Optimized Backstepping Control Method

The vessel heave motion caused by wave action increases the difficulty of installing offshore wind equipment. Onboard wave heave compensation devices have therefore become increasingly critical in ensuring the stability and safety of the gangway and working platform. This study accordingly improves the compensation effect of such devices by developing a wave heave compensation model and designing an optimized backstepping control method. First, a model of the compensation system including the servo motor and electric cylinder is established by using the mechanism method. Second, a backstepping control method is designed to track the vessel heave motion, and particle swarm optimization is applied to optimize the control parameters. Finally, MATLAB/Simulink is used to simulate the application of the optimized backstepping controller, then regular and irregular heave motions are applied as input to a Stewart platform to evaluate the effectiveness of the control method. The experimental results show that the compensation efficiency provided by the proposed optimized backstepping control method is larger than 75.0%.