Application of Wireless Network Control to Course-Keeping for Ships

In view of the network security and reliability of the steering control system, redundant wired control networks are adopted in some ships. To solve the problems of redundant wired networks in ships, the paper designs a wireless network as a redundant network for a ship's control system. The paper applies wireless network control to course-keeping for ships in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ship wireless communication network. However, there are some problems, such as time delay and packet loss, in the wireless network control system (WiNCS). In view of the above problems, the codesign of a communication protocol and control algorithm is studied in the paper. From the aspect of communication, the design is based on the concurrent and disjoint multipath routing ZigBee network, which can ensure the effective application of the control algorithm. From the aspect of control, the design of the ship course-keeping controller combines an improved gray model with the nonlinear robust controller based on the nonlinear decoration and integrator backstepping method, which can compensate for time delay and packet loss. In this paper, a simulation platform is designed to study the application of a wireless network control to course-keeping for ships. The experimental results also prove that the scheme is feasible and effective on a simulation platform. It is a beneficial attempt to apply the WiNCS to course-keeping for ships.