A lot of endeavors regarding the development of slider–crank mechanism in the ship’s propeller have been made and continue to be investigated. This paper presents the position control of a slider–crank mechanism, which is driven by the piston cylinder actuator to adjust the blade pitch angle. An effective motion control strategy known as the computed torque control can ensure global asymptotic stability. However, it is essential for this control scheme to have a precise and accurate system model. Moreover, large amounts of changes in the output and even instability of process are caused by a small amount of measurement or process noise, when the derivative gain is sufficiently large. Accordingly, in order to compensate any parameter deviation and disturbances as well as minimizing errors, we have presented a genetic algorithm-based computed torque control system which adjusts the proportional-derivative gains. Computer simulations are performed which reveals that asymptotically stability is reached and it confirms the effectiveness and high tracking capability of the proposed control scheme.
