ADRC Based Ship Course Controller Design and Simulations

Because of the strong non-linearity, uncertainty and the dynamics restraints of rudder, designing a high performance ship course controller is yet a challenge work. First, the ADRC control method was introduced briefly. Then the ship course motion characteristics were analyzed and the nonlinear model with the autopilot dynamic restrictions was given. Then the ship course motion system was expressed as a serial system, and the ADRC controllers were designed. At last, the ship´s course change and keeping control simulations were done in uncertainty environment. The results show that the ADRC controller can adapt well to the nonlinearity of ship course motion and has strong robustness to ship´s parameter perturbations and the system´s disturbances.