Title: Energy Optimization of Automatic Hybrid Sailboat,
Abstract: Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) provide an effective way to actualize
applications such as environment monitoring, search and rescue, and scientific
researches. However, the conventional ASVs depends overly on the stored energy.
Hybrid Sailboat, mainly powered by the wind, can solve this problem by using an
auxiliary propulsion system. The electric energy cost of Hybrid Sailboat needs
to be optimized to achieve the ocean automatic cruise mission. Based on
adjusted setting on sails and rudders, this paper seeks the optimal trajectory
for autonomic cruising to reduce the energy cost by changing the heading angle
of sailing upwind. The experiment results validate the heading angle accounts
for energy cost and the trajectory with the best heading angle saves up to
23.7% than other conditions. Furthermore, the energy-time line can be used to
predict the energy cost for long-time sailing.