The ship control system for trajectory tracking experiments with physical model of tanker

This paper presents a cascade system which stabilizes the transverse deviation of the ship in relation to the set path. The ship’s path is determined as a broken line with specified coordinates of way points. Three controllers are used in the system. The primary controller is the trajectory controller. It generates the set value of heading for the course control system or angular velocity for the turning control system. 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 nonlinear 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 was tested in Matlab-Simulink environment. The results of tests performed on a lake are presented and discussed.