Control of Ship Course Based on NN-Adaptive Output Feedback

This paper proposes the NN-adaptive output feedback control method for ship course tracking problem. The stability of the controller is proved by Lyapunov stability theory. The proposed controller only needs the measurable information of course angle, and the unknown disturbances in the complicated sea environment are estimated by neural network. To enhance the robustness of the controller, the structure of controller was designed again by adjusting some parameters and an example with a general cargo ship was shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Simulations, with ship course continues changing between 10° and -10°, illustrate that the design controller has strong robustness and good dynamic performance without overshooting.