Thomas Bräunl

Dear Colleagues, In recent years, autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs) have emerged as key enablers in a wide range of maritime applications, including environmental monitoring, seabed mapping, surveillance, search and rescue, sampling, and offshore infrastructure inspection. The increasing demand for long-duration missions in dynamic, uncertain, and GPS-denied environments has driven significant research and development in the areas of intelligent autonomy and real-time decision-making.

Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) control loops were used to keep the craft stable once foilborne. The choice was made to use PID loops over other control methodologies as they are simple to program, computationally efficient, well-researched, and work well in a range of scenarios. Analysis of the theoretical dynamic models of the vessel show that PID control loops are applicable. The dynamic models are all time-invariant second-order systems, which lend themselves well to PID control.

For 50 years hydrogen has been championed as a clean-burning gas that could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The idea of a “hydrogen economy” is now enjoying a new wave of enthusiasm — but it is not a silver bullet. Amid the current hydrogen hype, there is little discussion about when the technology can realistically become commercially viable or the best ways it can be used to cut emissions. Australia must use hydrogen intelligently and strategically.