DYNAMIC POSITIONING OF SHIPS USING A PLANNED NEURAL NETWORK CONTROLLER

Dynamic positioning of vessels is a technique which uses ship- mounted propellers and lateral thrusters commanded by a control system to maintain it as closely as required at some desired position in the horizontal plane. The environmental disturbing forces are those due to wind, waves and current. Control systems based on the PID principle have been used. This paper discusses a new type of neural network control system which has many advantages, namely: a versatile objective function which is adaptive to the need of the operator - more precision or more saving in power; a completely feed forward control which is self adaptive to changes in environmental forces including nonlinear wave drift forces. Emphasis in this paper is made on the quality of control, which is improved by including a velocity term beside the position term in the objective function. The performance is effectively enhanced. The station keeping problem is generalized to include moving the ship by neural- net control to a new target position if required. Computer simulations were carried out with satisfying results.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Selected Pprs of the Chinese Soc of Naval Architects and Marine Engrs, v 10, 1995, p 54 [16 p, 10 ref, 12 fig]
• Authors:
  • Li, Duo
  • Gu, M
• Publication Date: 1995

Language

• English

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Control systems; Dynamic positioning; Neural networks; Ship operations
• Old TRIS Terms: Station-keeping
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Marine Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00727526
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: British Maritime Technology
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Nov 1 1996 12:00AM