Abstract
Autonomous ships represent one of the new frontiers of technological innovation in marine engineering, which demand the development of innovative control systems to guarantee efficient and safe navigation of vessels. A convenient control system should be able to command the several actuators installed on board in different conditions—for instance, during oceanic navigation, harbor approach, narrow channels, and crowed areas. Such tasks are accomplished by different switching controllers for high and low speed motion, which have to be orchestrated to ensure an effective maneuvering. An approach to the design of hierarchies of controllers for maneuvering and navigation of ships equipped with a standard propulsion configuration in both blue and narrow water is proposed. Different levels of control, from global to local, are defined and integrated to steer the vessel in such a way to increase the maneuvering capability in various scenarios.
Highlights
The challenges posed by modern ships are attracting attention by the research community owing to the increased on-board connectivity as well as availability of electronic sensors and computational resources, likewise recently occurred for autonomous vehicles such as cars, planes, helicopters, and trains [1]. The core of such challenges consists of developing new control systems and design paradigms, which are the subject of the present paper
The control of low speed motions has become a topic of investigation since the early 1970s, when dynamic positioning has assumed a crucial importance for the oil industry
The present case study refers to a vessel, fitted with standard propulsion configuration, two propellers with rudders and a bow thruster
Summary
The challenges posed by modern ships are attracting attention by the research community owing to the increased on-board connectivity as well as availability of electronic sensors and computational resources, likewise recently occurred for autonomous vehicles such as cars, planes, helicopters, and trains [1]. The core of such challenges consists of developing new control systems and design paradigms, which are the subject of the present paper. This paper is focused on the problem of achieving sufficient smooth behaviors when orchestrating the switching among different controllers in a complex maneuvering operation.
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