A study on automatic ship berthing system design

The berthing is one of the most sophisticated control action carried out by human operators, especially when the disturbance due to wind and current become relatively large with a small ship velocity. Since, to improve the flexibility and safety´ ship for berthing, auxiliary maneuvering measures such as bow and stern thrusters have come to be attached. They are used as means to provide controlling force and moment while the control of the large ship in area of harbor usually involves the use of tugboats. In this paper, we try to identify the ship model with bow and stern thrusters. Based on the characteristic of their time responses, the second order model is obtained. PID controller is designed to achieve safe operation. Simulation and experiment results show good performance.