Motion control of an unmanned catamaran vessel for maritime environment

Abstract

This study aims to check the behaviour of various controllers that can successfully control a catamaran vessel on the ocean surface for trajectory tracking. Unlike on the ground, the ocean surface has disturbances from water currents, wind forces and ocean waves. Therefore, trajectory tracking is challenging work. A 3D model of a catamaran vessel was simulated to check the vessel’s behaviour with the controllers: Polynomial recurrent neural network-based adaptive PID controller, first and secondorder sliding mode controllers, and first-order adaptive controller are among them. The control system is a combination of two controllers. The primary controller controls the vessel’s surge and yaw according to the velocity error. The secondary controller controls the velocity errors required by the primary controller, according to the displacement error of the catamaran vessel from the trajectory and the required forward velocity of the catamaran vessel. The simulation results show the comparison of different combinations of primary and secondary controllers. It is identified that the yaw control of the catamaran and the secondary controller was the most critical and, thus, candidates for further development.