VECTOR FIELD GUIDANCE LAW FOR CURVED PATH FOLLOWING OF AN UNDERACTUATED AUTONOMOUS SHIP MODEL

A vector field guidance law and control system for curved path following of an underactuated surface ship model is presented in this paper. In order to obtain the curved path, continuous derivatives piecewise cubic Hermite interpolation is applied for path generation based on the predefined waypoints. A heading autopilot controller is designed based on 2nd order Nomoto’s model and its stability is guaranteed by the Diagram of Vyshnegradsky method. The parameters of Nomoto model are estimated using least square support vector machine based on the manoeuvring tests. The vector field guidance law is applied for both straight and curved path-following control of an underactuated surface ship model. In order to demonstrate the performance, the classical guidance law based on line-of-sight, is adopted for comparison. The results show that the vector field method is capable to solve the guidance problem of underactuated surface ships.

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Modified Vector Field Path-Following Control System for an Underactuated Autonomous Surface Ship Modelin the Presence of Static Obstacles

Journal of Marine Science and Engineering ◽

10.3390/jmse9060652 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 652

Author(s):

Haitong Xu ◽

Miguel A. Hinostroza ◽

C. Guedes Guedes Soares

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

Vector Field ◽

Path Following ◽

Field Method ◽

Integrated System ◽

Ship Model ◽

Surface Ship ◽

Path Following Control ◽

Exponentially Stable ◽

Vector Field Method

A modified path-following control system using the vector field method for an underactuated autonomous surface ship model is proposed in the presence of static obstacles. With this integrated system, autonomous ships are capable of following the predefined path, while avoiding the obstacles automatically. It is different from the methods in most published papers, which usually study path-following and obstacle collision avoidance, separately. This paper considers the coupled path following and collision avoidance task as a whole. Meanwhile, the paper also shows the heading control design method in the presence of static obstacles. To obtain a strong stability property, a nonlinear autopilot is designed based on the manoeuvring tests of the free-running ship model. The equilibrium point of the controller is globally exponentially stable. For the guidance system, a novel vector field method was proposed, and the proof shows the coupled guidance and control system is uniform semi-global exponentially stable (USGES). To prevent the obstacles near the predefined path, the proposed guidance law is augmented by integrating the repelling field of obstacles so that it can control the ship travel toward the predefined path through the obstacles safely. The repelling field function is given considering the obstacle shape and collision risk using the velocity obstacle (VO) algorithm. The simulations and ship model test were performed to validate the integrated system of autonomous ships.

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Waypoint-following for a marine surface ship model based on vector field guidance law

Maritime Technology and Engineering III ◽

10.1201/b21890-55 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 409-418 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Haitong Xu ◽

C Soares

Keyword(s):

Vector Field ◽

Ship Model ◽

Model Based ◽

Guidance Law ◽

Surface Ship ◽

Marine Surface ◽

Vector Field Guidance

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An Optimized Energy-Efficient Path Following Algorithm for Underactuated Marine Surface Ship Model

10.3940/rina.ijme.2018.a4.505 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol Vol 160 (A4) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Haitong Xu ◽

C Guedes Soares

Keyword(s):

Path Following ◽

Optimal Operation ◽

Least Square ◽

Support Vector ◽

Guidance Law ◽

Surface Ship ◽

Heading Control ◽

Marine Surface ◽

Nomoto Model ◽

Cross Track

An optimized path following guidance law is proposed for path-following of an underactuated surface ship. The main purpose of the proposed guidance law is to make a marine vessel travel with more energy efficiency. A combined feedback and feedforward controller is used for the heading control. The feedforward term is designed based on the well-known Nomoto model, whose parameters are estimated using least-square support vector regression. In order to achieve optimal operation of a marine vessel, a global optimization algorithm is employed to search the regularization factors, which are the trade-off between the total cross-track errors and total control energy. The simulation studies are carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed guidance law. The proposed method is an effective and practical guidance law and provide an optimal option for marine navigator.

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AN OPTIMIZED ENERGY-EFFICIENT PATH FOLLOWING ALGORITHM FOR UNDERACTUATED MARINE SURFACE SHIP MODEL

The International Journal of Maritime Engineering ◽

10.5750/ijme.v160ia4.1075 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 160 (A4) ◽

Author(s):

Haitong Xu ◽

C Guedes Soares

Keyword(s):

Path Following ◽

Optimal Operation ◽

Least Square ◽

Support Vector ◽

Guidance Law ◽

Surface Ship ◽

Heading Control ◽

Marine Surface ◽

Nomoto Model ◽

Cross Track

An optimized path following guidance law is proposed for path-following of an underactuated surface ship. The main purpose of the proposed guidance law is to make a marine vessel travel with more energy efficiency. A combined feedback and feedforward controller is used for the heading control. The feedforward term is designed based on the well-known Nomoto model, whose parameters are estimated using least-square support vector regression. In order to achieve optimal operation of a marine vessel, a global optimization algorithm is employed to search the regularization factors, which are the trade-off between the total cross-track errors and total control energy. The simulation studies are carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed guidance law. The proposed method is an effective and practical guidance law and provide an optimal option for marine navigator.

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Time-Varying Vector Field Guidance Law for Path Following and Obstacle Avoidance for Underactuated Autonomous Vehicles

Volume 7B: Ocean Engineering ◽

10.1115/omae2019-96618 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Haitong Xu ◽

M. A. Hinostroza ◽

C. Guedes Soares

Keyword(s):

Vector Field ◽

Obstacle Avoidance ◽

Autonomous Vehicles ◽

Sliding Mode ◽

Path Following ◽

Guidance System ◽

Time Varying ◽

Guidance Law ◽

Heading Angle ◽

Vector Field Guidance

Abstract This paper presents a time-varying vector field guidance law for path-following control of underactuated autonomous vehicles. The proposed guidance law employs a time-varying equation to calculate the desired heading angle. A sliding mode controller is designed to track the desired heading angle, and it is proved to be globally exponentially stable (GES). With this controller, the stability proof for guidance system is presented and the equilibrium point of the guidance system is Uniform Global Asymptotic Stable (UGAS). In order to avoid the obstacle when ship approaching the predefined path, a combined Path-following and repelling field based obstacle avoidance system is proposed in this paper. Simulations are carried out to validate the performance of the combined path-following and collision avoidance system.

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