Nonlinear adaptive tracking control for underway replenishment process

Significant interaction disturbances exist while ships execute underway replenishment process, which can be characterized as position tracking problem and high precision controllers are required. In this paper we develop a coupled nonlinear two-vessel tracking model for addressing the problem of underway replenishment. Next, using this model we applied an inverse optimal adaptive controller that guarantees disturbance rejection to exogenous disturbances while maintaining a desired separation between the two vessels.