Improvement of Ship Motion Control Using a Magnitude-Rate Saturation Model

Motion control concepts for ships have traditionally not focused on handling actuator constraints. This paper investigates the effects on performance of a pair of nonlinear control schemes by developing and implementing a magnitude-rate saturation (MRS) model. The effects of using the MRS model is tested in experiments with a model ship in an ocean basin. Performance metrics are used to evaluate performance in terms of control error, energy efficiency, and actuator wear and tear.