A novel methodology for robust dynamic positioning of marine vessels: Theory and experiments

The paper describes a novel robust adaptive controller for Dynamic Positioning (DP) of marine vessels. The proposed Robust Multiple Model Adaptive Dynamic Positioning (RMMADP) structure consists of a bank of robust controllers designed using the Mixed-μ methodology and an identification unit. The latter is composed by a bank of (steady-state) Kalman filters (KFs) that generate online the output estimation errors (residuals) that are used to generate appropriate monitoring signals. At each sampling time, the monitoring signals are assessed to decide which controller should be selected from the bank of the controllers. The proposed adaptive structure of the RMMADP enables the DP system to operate in different operational conditions and hence, it is a step forward to a so-called all-year marine DP system. Numerical simulations, carried out with a high fidelity nonlinear DP simulator, illustrate the efficacy of the RMMADP techniques proposed. To bridge the gap between theory and practice, the results are experimentally verified by model testing a DP operated ship, the Cybership III, under different sea conditions in a towing tank equipped with a hydraulic wave maker.