An Adaptive Autopilot for Inland Ships

Abstract

The design of an adaptive autopilot for inland ships is discussed. An autopilot for inland ships has to control the rate of turn rather than the heading. Adaptive properties are desirable in order to reduce the cost of initial tuning and to maintain good performance under varying sailing conditions. As an adaptation scheme, indirect adaptive control is used. An extended Kaiman filter estimates the ship’s parameters. A pole-placement algorithm uses these estimates to tune a PI controller. The algorithms have been implemented in a VME-bus computer. Results of full-scale trials demonstrate the attractive performance of the adaptive autopilot.