Surface Effect Ship with Four Air Cushions Part II: Roll and Pitch Damping

Abstract

This paper introduce damping of roll and pitch motion on a Surface Effect Ship (SES) in low vessel speeds. The SES consist of two side-hulls, a reinforced rubber bow and stern seal skirt system and four air cushion. The air cushions can lift up to 90 % of the total vessel mass depending on the output of the controller. The pressure in the air cushions are controlled using feedback from gyros which results in heavily reduced motions in roll and pitch. The effectiveness of the proposed system is examined through numerical simulation in a high fidelity simulator developed in a companion article (Ola M. Haukeland, Hassani, and Auestad 2019).