Nonlinear observer-controller design for dynamic positioning of ships

The main focus is nonlinear model-based dynamic positioning (DP) control system design. A nonlinear uniform global exponential stability (UGES) observer produces noise-free estimates of the position, the slowly varying environmental disturbances and the velocity, which are used in a proportional-derivative (PD) + feedforward control law. The stability of this observer-controller system is proved by introducing a specific nonlinear cascaded system. The simulation results have successfully demonstrated the performance of designed DP control system.