A Direct Compensative Robust Optimal Control (DCROC) Law for Ship Straight-line Track-keeping

A linear quadratic optimal direct track-keeping control law was proposed based on first-order Nomoto nominal model. Furthermore, based on Lyapunov stabilized theory, considering parametric uncertainty from variations of ship speed and disturbances uncertain from wind, wave and sea current, a direct compensative robust optimal control (DCROC) law was developed. It can guarantee closed-loop system globally and uniformly converge to a remained set. High accuracy and robustness were achieved. By introducing some nonlinear blocks, closed-loop system achieves global and uniform asymptotical stableness. Numerical simulations on a Mariner Class ship are presented to validate the control law.

Design and Stability Analysis of Fuzzy Switched PID Controller for Ship Track-Keeping

The fuzzy switched PID controller which combines fuzzy PD and conventional PI controller is proposed for ship track-keeping autopilot In this paper. By using rudder angle, the whole voyage is divided into two operating regimes which named transient operating regime and steady operating regime respectively. The fuzzy PD controller is employed in transient operating regime for increasing response, reducing overshoot and shorting transition time. And conventional PI controller is used to improve the stable accuracy in steady operating regime. The global controller is achieved by fuzzy blending of all local controllers. Routh stability criterion is utilized to obtain the stability condition of closed-loop system. The simulation results show the effectiveness of proposed method.

Application of a compound controller based on fuzzy control and support vector machine to ship's boiler-turbine coordinated control system

Multivariables, strong coupling, nonlinearity, and large delays characterize the boiler-turbine coordinated control systems for ship power equipment. To better deal with these conditions, a compound control strategy based on a support vector machine （SVM） with inverse identification was proposed and applied to research simulating coordinated control systems. This method combines SVM inverse control and fuzzy control, taking advantage of the merits of SVM inverse controls which can be designed easily and have high reliability, and those of fuzzy controls, which respond rapidly and have good anti-jamming capability and robustness. It ensures the controller can be controlled with near instantaneous adjustments to maintain a steady state, even if the SVM is not trained well. The simulation results show that the control quality of this fuzzy-SVM compound control algorithm is high, with good performance in dynamic response speed, static stability, restraint of overshoot, and robustness.

Nonlinear Backstepping Ship Course Controller

A ship, as an object of course control, is characterized by a nonlinear function describing the static maneuvering characteristics. The backstepping method is one of the methods that can be used during the designing process of a nonlinear course controller for ships. The method has been used for the purpose of designing two configurations of nonlinear controllers, which were then used to control the ship course. One of the configurations took dynamic characteristic of a steering gear into account during the designing stage. The parameters of the obtained nonlinear control structures have been tuned to optimise the operation of the control system. The optimisation process has been performed by means of genetic algorithms. The quality of operation of the designed control algorithms has been checked in simulation tests performed on the mathematical model of a tanker. The results of simulation experiments have been compared with the performance of the system containing a conventional proportional-derivative （PD） controller.

Adaptive robust dissipative designs on straight path control for underactuated ships

An adaptive robust control algorithm for ship straight path control system in the presence of both modeling uncertainties and the bounded disturbances is proposed. Motivated by the backstepping approach, the algorithm is developed by using the dissipation theory, such that the resulting dosed-loop system is both strictly dissipative and asymptotically adaptively stable for all admissible uncertainties. Also, it is able to steer an underactuated ship along a prescribed straight path with ultimate bounds under external disturbances induced by wave, wind and ocean current. When there are no disturbances, the straight path control can be implemented in a locally asymptotically stable manner. Simulation results on an ocean-going training ship ‘YULONG＇ are presented to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm.

Path following control of underactuated ships based on nonswitch analytic model predictive control

A path following controller is developed for underactuated ships with only surge force and yaw moment available to follow a predefined path.The proposed controller is based on nonswitch analytic model predictive control.It is shown that the optimal control law for a nonlinear path following system with ill-defined relative degree is continuous and nonsingular.The problem of ill-defined relative degree is solved.The path-following ability of the nonlinear system is guaranteed.Numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law.

Application of H infinite control to ship steering system

Because the general object of ship steering control system is singular, the state Of rudder force and the state of disturbance are separated, and the generalized yaw output disturhance is obtained. Furthermore, singular system control problem of ship yaw and sway coupled system is transferred into nonsingular standard control problem. Then according to the linear fractional denoting algorithm of the rational function parameter perturbation system, the Linear Fractional Transform （LFT） model of yaw and sway coupled motion is solved, which is used to design the ship steering robust control system. For the ship steering system with the uncertain parameters, the robust control law is designed based on H^∞ μ-synthesis. And the robust performance of the system is analyzed and the simulation validation is made. Simulation results show that the designed control system has excellent control effect and robustness.

Design of robust fuzzy controller for ship course-tracking based on RBF network and backstepping approach

This study presents an adaptive fuzzy neural network (FNN) control system for the ship steering autopilot. For the Norrbin ship steering mathematical model with the nonlinear and uncertain dynamic characteristics, an adaptive FNN control system is designed to achieve high-precision track control via the backstepping approach. In the adaptive FNN control system, a FNN backstepping controller is a principal controller which includes a FNN estimator used to estimate the uncertainties, and a robust controller is designed to compensate the shortcoming of the FNN backstepping controller. All adaptive learning algorithms in the adaptive FNN control system are derived from the sense of Lyapunov stability analysis, so that system-tracking stability can be guaranteed in the closed-loop system. The effectiveness of the proposed adaptive FNN control system is verified by simulation results.

Simulation and Design of Fuzzy Sliding-mode Controller for Ship Heading-tracking

In considering the characteristic of a rudder,the maneuvers of a ship were described by an unmatched uncertain nonlinear mathematic model with unknown virtual control coefficient and parameter uncertainties.In order to solve the uncertainties in the ship heading control,specifically the controller singular and paramount re-estimation problem,a new multiple sliding-mode adaptive fuzzy control algorithm was proposed by combining Nussbaum gain technology,the approximation property of fuzzy logic systems,and a multiple sliding-mode control algorithm.Based on the Lyapunov function,it was proven in theory that the controller made all signals in the nonlinear system of unmatched uncertain ship motion uniformly bounded,with tracking errors converging to zero.Simulation results show that the demonstrated controller design can track a desired course fast and accurately.It also exhibits strong robustness peculiarity in relation to system uncertainties and disturbances.

Improved filtered-ε adaptive inverse control and its application on nonlinear ship maneuvering

The drawbacks of common nonlinear Filtered-ε adaptive inverse control （AIC） method, such as the unreliability due to the change of delay time and the faultiness existing in its disturbance control loop, are discussed. Based on it, the diagram of AIC is amended to accommodate with the characteristic of nonlinear object with time delay. The corresponding Filtered-ε adaptive algorithm based on RTRL is presented to identify the parameters and design the controller. The simulation results on a nonlinear ship model of ＂The R.O.V Zeefakker＂ show that compared with the previous scheme and adaptive PID control, the improved method not only keeps the same dynamic response performance, but also owns higher robustness and disturbance rejection ability, and it is suitable for the control of nonlinear objects which have higher requirement to the maneuverability under complex disturbance environment.

Terminal Sliding Mode Fuzzy Control Based on Multiple Sliding Surfaces for Nonlinear Ship Autopilot Systems

A terminal sliding mode fuzzy control based on multiple sliding surfaces was proposed for ship course tracking steering, which takes account of rudder characteristics and parameter uncertainty. In order to solve the problem, the controller was designed by employing the universal approximation property of fuzzy logic system, the advantage of Nussbaum function, and using multiple sliding mode control algorithm based on the recursive technique. In the last step of designing, a nonsingular terminal sliding mode was utilized to drive the last state of the system to converge in a finite period of time, and high-order sliding mode control law was designed to eliminate the chattering and make the system robust. The simulation results showed that the controller designed here could track a desired course fast and accurately. It also exhibited strong robustness peculiarly to system, and had better adaptive ability than traditional PID control algorithms.

Cooperative Multi-Agent Control for Autonomous Ship Towing Under Environmental Disturbances

Among the promising application of autonomous surface vessels(ASVs)is the utilization of multiple autonomous tugs for manipulating a floating object such as an oil platform,a broken ship,or a ship in port areas.Considering the real conditions and operations of maritime practice,this paper proposes a multi-agent control algorithm to manipulate a ship to a desired position with a desired heading and velocity under the environmental disturbances.The control architecture consists of a supervisory controller in the higher layer and tug controllers in the lower layer.The supervisory controller allocates the towing forces and angles between the tugs and the ship by minimizing the error in the position and velocity of the ship.The weight coefficients in the cost function are designed to be adaptive to guarantee that the towing system functions well under environmental disturbances,and to enhance the efficiency of the towing system.The tug controller provides the forces to tow the ship and tracks the reference trajectory that is computed online based on the towing angles calculated by the supervisory controller.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can make the two autonomous tugs cooperatively tow a ship to a desired position with a desired heading and velocity under the(even harsh)environmental disturbances.

Robust Position Observer for Sensorless Direct Voltage Control of Stand-Alone Ship Shaft Brushless Doubly-Fed Induction Generators

The aim of this paper is to investigate an adaptive sensorless direct voltage control(DVC)strategy for the stand-alone ship shaft brushless doubly-fed induction generators(BDFIGs).The proposed new rotor position observer using the space vector flux relations of BDFIG may achieve the desired voltage control of the power winding(PW)in terms of magnitude and frequency,without any speed/position sensors.The proposed algorithm does not require any additional observers for obtaining the generator speed.The proposed technique can directly achieve the desired DVC based on the estimated rotor position,which may reduce the overall system cost.The stability analysis of the proposed observer is investigated and confirmed with the concept of quadratic Lyapunov function and using the multi-model representation.In addition,the sensitivity analysis of the presented method is confirmed under different issues of parameter uncertainties.Comprehensive results from both simulation and experiments are realized with a prototype wound-rotor BDFIG,which demonstrate the capability and efficacy of the proposed sensorless DVC strategy with good transient behavior under different operating conditions.Furthermore,the analysis confirms the robustness of the proposed observer via the machine parameter changes.

Sliding-mode control of path following for underactuated ships based on high gain observer

A nonlinear robust control strategy is proposed to force an underactuated surface ship to follow a predefined path with uncertain environmental disturbance and parameters.In the controller design,a high-gain observer is used to estimate velocities,thus only position and yaw angle measurements are required.The control problem of underactuated system is transformed into a control of fully actuated system through adopting an improved line-of-sight(LOS) guidance law.A sliding-mode controller is designed to eliminate the yaw angle error,and provide the control system robustness.The control law is proved semi-globally exponentially stable(SGES) by applying Lyapunov stability theory,and numerical simulation using real data of a monohull ship illustrates the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed methodology.

Dynamical Correction of Control Laws for Marine Ships’ Accurate Steering

The objective of this work is the analytical synthesis problem for marine vehicles autopilots design. Despite numerous known methods for a solution, the mentioned problem is very complicated due to the presence of an extensive population of certain dynamical conditions, requirements and restrictions, which must be satisfied by the appropriate choice of a steering control law. The aim of this paper is to simplify the procedure of the synthesis, providing accurate steering with desirable dynamics of the control system. The approach proposed here is based on the usage of a special unified multipurpose control law structure that allows decoupling a synthesis into simpler particular optimization problems. In particular, this structure includes a dynamical corrector to support the desirable features for the vehicle＇s motion under the action of sea wave disturbances. As a result, a specialized new method for the corrector design is proposed to provide an accurate steering or a trade-off between accurate steering and economical steering of the ship. This method guaranties a certain flexibility of the control law with respect to an actual environment of the sailing;its corresponding turning can be realized in real time onboard.

Application of H~∞ control in rudder/flap vector robust control of a ship's course

Given the uncertainty of parameters and the random nature of disturbances that effect a ships course, a robust course controller should be designed on the basis of rudder/flap vector control. This paper analyzes system uncertainty, and the choice of weighting functions is also discussed. When sea waves operate on a ship, the energy-concentrating frequency varies with the angle of encounter. For different angles of encounter, different weighting functions are designed. For the pole of a nominal model existing in an imaginary axis, the bilinear-transform method is used. The "2-Riccati" equation is adopted to solve the H∞ controller. A system simulation is given, and the results show that, compared with a PID controller, this system has higher course precision and more robust performance. This research has significant engineering value.

Study on dangerous collision area of ships out of control in Sutong Bridge area

Motion state of ship out of control in bridge area was analyzed.Motion procedure after losing control was divided into two steps.One is drift step within stopping period.The other is drift step without inertia,which is induced by wind and current.Mathematical model for motion of ship out of control,considering wind-induced drift,current-induced drift,stopping ability,etc.,was established.Dangerous collision areas for main pier and auxiliary piers were analyzed according to different calculation conditions.

Fuzzy Optimal Control Design for Ship Steering

This paper presents a method to design a control scheme for nonlinear systems using fuzzy optimal control.In the design process,the nonlinear system is first converted into local subsystems using sector non linearity approach of Takagi Sugeno(T S)fuzzy modeling.For each local subsystem,an optimal control is designed.Then,the parameters of local controllers are defuzzified to construct a global optimal controller.To prove the effectiveness of this control scheme,simulations are performed using the mathematical model of Esso Osaka tanker ship for set point regulation with and without disturbance and reference tracking.In addition,the simulation results are compared with that of a PID controller for further verification and validation.It has been shown that the proposed optimal controller can be used for the nonlinear ship steering with good rise time,zero steady state error and fast settling time.

On the Existence of an Optimal Control of Ship Automatic Steering Instruments

The existence of linear quadratic optimal control of ship automatic steering instruments is studied. Firstly, the sufficient conditions for the quadratic integrability of the solutions of linear second order time-variant differential equations are developed. Secondly, the optimal control form of the ship automatic steering instrument is obtained by using the dynamic programming method, which guarantees a minimal ship sway range, during long-distance navigation, by using as little energy as possible. Finally, based on the above mentioned sufficient conditions, the conditions for the realization of optimal control are obtained, which provides a foundation for choosing the weighted coefficients for optimal control in engineering.

Non-linear controllers in ship tracking control system

The cascade systems which stabilize the transverse deviation of the ship in relation to the set path is presented. The ship's path is determined as a broken line with specified coordinates of way points. Three controllers are used in the system. The main primary controller is the trajectory controller. The set value of heading for the course control system or angular velocity for the turning control system is generated. The course control system is used on the straight line of the set trajectory while the turning controller is used during a change of the set trajectory segment. The characteristics of the non-linear controllers are selected in such a way that the properties of the control system with the rate of turn controller are modelled by the first-order inertia, while the system with the course keeping controller is modelled by a second-order linear term. The presented control system is tested in computer simulation. Some results of simulation tests are presented and discussed.