Robust dynamic ship positioning control system design and applications

This paper describes the robust control system design for a ship dynamic positioning system. The control design is based on an approximate linear model derived from the nonlinear hydrodynamic equations governing the horizontal motions of the ship. The nonlinear models of the ship, seawaves, current, wind and thrusters are derived and simulated for control design verification. The H-infinity control design technique is employed to design the controller. The control problem is formulated in state-space form and the design specifications are translated into requirements on the weighting functions of the error signal and the thrusters input. A tuning procedure is proposed based on the wind and wave disturbances. The controller is initially tested on the nonlinear ship model and simulation results are presented to demonstrate the robustness of the H-infinity controller. Tank tests results are then presented to assess the controller performance. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.