Dynamic positioning of ship using direct model reference adaptive control

The proposed research focuses on the development of a Direct Model Reference Adaptive Controller for the purpose of the Dynamic Positioning of a ship. A model of a ship with three-degrees-of-freedom is used. The objective of the Dynamic Positioning is to control the horizontal motion of a ship in surge, sway and yaw exclusively by means of thrusters in the presence of environmental disturbances like wind, wave & currents. The ship has three independent control inputs for surge, sway and yaw control. Because we want to control the horizontal motion of ship, the multi-input multi output (MIMO) DMRAC output is a vector which provides thrust in each of the three degrees of freedom surge, sway and yaw, thus controlling the deviation of a ship from the specified path or position to be maintained. The control system is then analyzed for its ability to respond effectively to varying environmental disturbances and ability to keep the ship in desired position.