A LabVIEW Based Submarine Depth Control

Simulator with PID and Fuzzy Controller

Mehmet Ekici, Hakan Kahveci, Adem Sefa AKPINAR
Karadeniz Technical University, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Trabzon, Turkey
mehmet.ekici@ktu.edu.tr, hknkahveci@ktu.edu.tr, akpinar@ktu.edu.tr

Abstract— LabVIEW is one of the popular simulation program
in the academic and industrial applications. In this paper, online
simulator for the depth control of a submarine has presented. In
order to keep the submarine at a certain level below the sea
surface, a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) as a major control unit
was designed and employed with LabVIEW Control Design and
Simulation Toolkit. Also comparison between fuzzy logic (FL)
and PID controlled system was presented. Simulation results
show that system has better settling time and no overshoots with
FLC.
Keywords-LabVIEW; Simulator; Submarine; Control; Fuzzy; PID
I.INTRODUCTION
LabVIEW (short for Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation
Engineering Workbench) is a platform and development
environment for a visual programming language from
National Instruments. With the development of computer
technology, the drawbacks of traditional control system
simulation become more and more apparent. Putting virtual
instruments software into control system simulation system
will result in not only the cost reduction of the hardware, but
also the enhancement of the teaching or training effect. [1].
At the present time, LabVIEW simplifies the scientific
computation, process control, research, industrial application
and measurement applications. Because LabVIEW has the
flexibility of a programming language combined with built-in
tools designed specifically for test, measurement, and control.
Interfacing with real-world signals, analyzing data and
sharing results are very easy by using the integrated
LabVIEW environment.
In literature many studies about submarine depth control,
controller designs and fuzzy logic systems have been
presented. Mality has decided to build on his growing
reputation as a flight control system designer and moved out
to the area of Submarines. Then he added a pitch feedback in
his system for taking better results [3]. Hao and others have
been presented two - step depth fuzzy controller and generic
algorithm. They have used seven membership functions for
error and its change. They have indicated that different fuzzy
controller system parameter coefficients should be employed
for each submarine depth [4]. Guo and others have been used
orbit control method and the desired orbit (depth) value with
a stable way. They have reached the target with PD controller
[5]. Demirci have been proposed indirect adaptive control
techniques for submarine depth control [6]. Ozkop have been
used five cauchy membership functions for error and its
change in his study [7].
Systems which are act under the sea must be reach
reference depth with minimum oscillation in a short time.
Oscillations around the reference depth exert extra pressure
on submarine. So, the system depth must be checked
continuously with a controller.
In this paper, LabVIEW based simulator for depth control
of a submarine has presented. Submarine depth was
controlled with FLC or PID controller. Fuzzy logic and PID
controllers were built up with LabVIEW general blocks. PID
parameters can be adjusted via simulator interface during
simulation period.
The paper has organized as follows: Section two explains
the mathematical model of the submarine system. The
LabVIEW based simulator is explained in section three.
Simulation is detailed in section four. Results and conclusions
are given in section five and six, respectively.
II. SYSTEM
A. The Mathematical Model of Submarine System
The mathematical model is shown below as transfer
function representing the depth of submarine. Equation (2)
represents submarine system mathematical model. The
transfer function of the system is obtained by the Equation
(3). Then the state-space model of the system is represented
at the end of this section.
Fig. 1 Closed-loop submarine depth control system
5 1
G1 = 2
; G2 = ; (1)
s + 9 s + 25 s
5
G3 = G1* G 2 = (2)
s + 9 s 2 + 25s
3

978-1-4799-0661-1/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE

Fig. 1 shows closed-loop submarine depth control system . If ⎛ dx1 ( t ) ⎞
controller gain is equal K then closed-loop transfer function
⎜ dt ⎟
⎜ ⎟ ⎛ −9 − 6, 25 − 1, 25 ⎞ ⎛ x1 ⎞ ⎛ 0, 25 ⎞
is equal to ⎜ dx 2 ( t ) ⎟ = ⎜ 4 ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
0 0 ⎟ . ⎜ x2 ⎟ + ⎜ 0 ⎟ .u
⎜ dt ⎟ ⎜
⎜ ⎟ ⎝⎜ 0 1 0 ⎠⎟ ⎝⎜ x3 ⎠⎟ ⎝⎜ 0 ⎟
⎠
⎜ dx 3 ( t ) ⎟
⎜ ⎟
K ∗ G3 K ∗5 ⎝ dt ⎠
T .F = = 3 (3)
2
1 + K ∗ G3 s + 9 s + 25s + K *5 ⎛ x1 ⎞
⎜ ⎟
y = ( 0 0 5 ) . ⎜ x2 ⎟ (4)
⎜x ⎟
Equation (3) is the submarine’s transfer function. If K=1, the ⎝ 3⎠
state-space model of submarine is shown in Equation (4).

B. Submarine Depth Control with Fuzzy Logic, PID Controller Front Panel and Block Diagram

Fig. 2 Front Panel

 Fig. 3 Block Diagram

Fig. 2 shows front panel of the system. There is start toggle to block diagram when simulation is running. The PID controller
run the simulation and reference slide for determine the set compares the set point (SP) to the process variable (PV) to
point of submarine. PID parameters slides are used as input obtain the error (e).
for changing P, I, D gains. User can see block diagram model
of submarine depth control system on front panel. When
simulation is running submarine sonar sound is started. Also,
user can see the controllers (PID - Fuzzy) effects on the
system during the simulation time. User can change the
reference value and can see the system response online.

Fig. 3 shows block diagram of the system. The block diagram

contains the graphical source code of a LabVIEW program.
The concept of the block diagram is to separate the graphical
source code from the user interface in a logical and simple
manner. Front panel objects appear as terminals on the block
diagram. Terminals on the block diagram reflect the changes
made to their corresponding front panel objects and vice
versa [8, 9]. PID and Fuzzy controllers subVIs are shown in
control and simulation loop. For simulation, there are used 30 Fig. 4 PID Controller Block Diagram
(s) simulation time, ODE Solver Runga-Kutta 3 and step size
0, 03 (s). e = SP − PV (5)
Then the PID controller calculates the controller action, u (t),
III. PID CONTROLLER where Kc is controller gain.

t
A. Design the block diagram with LabVIEW Kc de
u (t ) = K c e + ∫
Ti 0
edt + K cTd
dt
(6)
Fig. 4 shows that for the system a PID controller is designed
with LabVIEW. Kp, Ki and Kd gains are controlled online on
 IV. SYSTEM WITH FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLER
A. The Model of the FLC
A Fuzzy Logic controller consists of three sections;
fuzzifier, rule base and defuzzifier. Two input signals, the
main signal and its change for each sampling to the FL
controller are converted to fuzzy numbers in fuzzifier. Then
they are used in the rule table to determine the fuzzy number
of the compensated output signal. Finally, the resultant united
fuzzy subsets representing the controller output are converted
to the crisp values.
Fuzzy concluding mechanism works with;
If e is A and ∆e is B then ∆u is C. (7)
The Boolean operator “min” is used for the verbal
connector “and” to simulate the input space of the rules that
have the structure as in expression (7). A, B and C
parameters are used instead of NB, NS, ZZ, PS and PB.
A rule base is composed with 25 rules as to previous
expressions. (NB: Negative Big, NS: Negative Small, ZZ:
Zero, PS: Positive Small, PB: Positive Big)
TABLE I. FUZZY RULE DECISION
Fig. 5 Fuzzy controller of the system (fuzzifier, rule base and defuzzifier)
Triangular fuzzy membership functions are used in our
model.
Fuzzification stage and the first part of rule based fuzzy
processing unit of the FLC are given in Figure 5. The crisp
inputs e(k) and ∆e(k) are converted to fuzzy membership
values on the fuzzy subsets NB, NS, ZZ, PS and PB. Each
fuzzy subset (FS) is represented by a triangular membership
function and shown by blocks in Figure 5. The letters E and
DE in Figure 5 are used to indicate whether the elements
belong to error, e or its change ∆e respectively.
Output points figured as mu1, mu2 ...mu25 have been
shown above mentioned, Figure 5 is Fuzzy mass coefficient
that equivalent to the each outlook point at the 25 ruled
Fuzzy Logic Controller defined in ∆u output space. In the
expression takes part in central management, those
coefficients are multiply with the absolute number that has
maximum member at the related membership function.
In the Defuzzification part, as per central area, sum of the
multiplying quantities at the portion need to be divided to the
represent of rule coefficient membership degree sum gained.
The block name as Fuzzification is a subsystem block
representing the executed process in Figure 5. By the way,
there is transformed to the subsystem block and represent
with the block named as fuzzy reasoning.
 B. System with Fuzzy Logic Controller
TABLE III. FLC EFFECT (PO, Ts, Ess)
FLC which is designed in previous section has been
integrated in the system as a sub system block. Fig. 6 shows FLC
the system with FLC. P.O. 0,16
Ts 4s
Ess 0
P.O (Percent Overshoot), Ts (Settling Time), Es (Steady-state
error) are criterion of controller’s success.

Fig. 6 Block diagram of the system with Fuzzy Logic

Controller in LabVIEW

Fig. 8 Root locus graph and stability of the system

Fig. 7 Expected system output with Fuzzy Logic Controller

Ref. Depth (-800, -600,-400,-500)

It is shown below in Figure 7, the expected system output

signal for Fuzzy Logic Controlled system.

V. RESULTS
Submarine depth control system simulation was executed
by LabVIEW program. Suggested FLC systems and the Fig. 9 Submarine depth control system outputs with PID and
system with PID controller were designed by LabVIEW. Fuzzy Logic controller results.
A comparison between the suggested and designed
system was accomplished. When the settling time taken as Fig. 9 shows comparison of the PID and Fuzzy Logic
criterion, the system with PID and Fuzzy Logic Controller controllers. There are selected best parameters of PID.
gave almost the different results. For all these, it is expected
that the system simulated by the designed FLC has better VI. CONCLUSION
settling time output result than the PID. The system's root In this paper, a submarine depth control system simulation
locus is shown in Figure 8.Stability analysis was performed, has been designed. The suggested and designed systems have
and the system is stable. been simulated by LabVIEW program. LabVIEW is a
flexible and powerful program. When our simulation is
TABLE II. PID CONTROLLER EFFECT (PO, T s, Ess) running user can change input variable such as reference P, I,
D, and can be seen effects to the results of system. User can
P I D P I D P I D P I D P I D analyze root locus graph and stability of the system. With the
3-0,01- 0,2 4-0,01- 0,3 5-0,01- 0,1 6-0,01- 0,1 7-0,01- 0,1 gained results, a comparison between the suggested and
P.O. 0 0 0 %1,8 %4,48 designed system have been accomplished and it is quite
Ts 6s 5s 4,6s 4,2s 4s obvious that Fuzzy Logic Controller gives better result to us
Ess %0,55 %0,32 %0,20 %0,14 %0,10 than other controller.
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