Modelling and Simulation of Hydraulic Boom for offshore purposes

Hydraulic manipulators are widely used in offshore industries to transport cargo containers. Modern-day hydraulic manipulators on board with huge cargo carrying surface vessel are built to transport heavy payloads. These hydraulic manipulators are usually controlled manually through a joystick. The combination of modern electronics and hydraulics has been an imperative tool for the inception of new applications. One such application is discussed in this thesis report. Wherein, a new generation hydraulic manipulator for a small surface vehicle is designed and modern control schemes are implemented to launch and retrieve the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). In this thesis, design, control, and stabilization of lightweight and corrosion resistant hydraulic boom are presented. The main features of the mechanical design are Aluminium sheet metal design of arms and an indigenous design of 6 link mechanism to convert the linear movement of the double-sided piston to the rotary movement of the second arm. A robust control system is implemented to compensate the uncertainties in the offshore environment. The hydraulic system is simulated along with the SIMSCAPE representation of the mechanical assembly. The stabilization of the hydraulic manipulator is performed by calculating the manipulator dynamics and through some motion detection sensors. The results of this thesis show a new and conceptual design of the hydraulic boom for offshore usage, provides a substantial evidence for the type of controller and feedback system to be used and presents a prospective future work required for the implementations. This research presents a profound collection of the qualitative and quantitative data to manufacture the manipulator and design a control system for launching and retrieving of the UAV and AUV