Development of a low inertia drumless tether management system

Wang, Haibing (2017) Development of a low inertia drumless tether management system. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Oceanography winch system is a very important piece of equipment for ocean research. It is capable of managing cable and towing lines that are connected to the scientific research equipment. Traditional drummed winch systems exhibits issues such as large drum inertia that causes slow response, cable kink and high power consumption. In this thesis, an innovative low inertia drumless winch system that winds cable into a Figure "1" shape was proposed and prototypes were designed and fabricated to prove the concept. To estimate the power requirement for the winch system with regard to sensor towing applications, a dynamic mathematical model of the tow cable in two dimensions was developed using lumped parameter modelling. The model was implemented in Matlab, and simulations were done for different towing speeds. Towing forces including analysis of drag on cable, and relative sensor position under varying towing conditions could be estimated from the model. Two prototypes were designed and built to prove the concept. The first prototype was designed to be a two module system which was planned to achieve reeling, twisting and directing the cable separately by the two modules. Dry running tests of the cable manipulation was performed. Second prototype which consisted of Cable Manipulation Unit and Cable Storage Unit was also designed and built. All three geared DC servo motors are feedback loop controlled using PID controllers, and PID parameters were manually tuned. Cable winding tests were performed. Prototype one failed at twisting and changing the direction of cable.Prototype two successfully reels in and out the cable and can also change the direction while reeling it, but failed at twisting the cable while it was being reeled. Test results and problems encountered were discussed, possible solutions and future work on how to solve the problems and improve the performance of the system were also discussed.

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