Application of an Aeronautic Control for Ship Path Following

Abstract

Control design for marine autonomous vehicles is a subject of great interest in control systems. These vehicles are strongly non linear and show complex hydrodynamics effects that make the control design difficult. Besides, coordinated control deals with the control of several independent objects to reach a global goal. Therefore the CPF deals with the problem of controlling a group of unmanned vehicles along a given path, while they are keeping a desired formation. In a first approach to the problem of coordinated control of formations, the control of an underactuated autonomous vehicle, a ship, has been treated to reach and follow a given reference. For the control of the ship, it has been used a Line of Sight algorithm, initially developed for the control of an aircraft, applied to marine vehicles, allowing a smooth and accurate control and path following.