Dynamic ship positioning using a self-tuning Kalman filter

A novel adaptive filtering technique is described for a class of systems with unknown disturbances. The estimator includes both a self-tuning filter and a Kalman filter. The state estimates are employed in a closed-loop feedback control scheme which is designed via the usual linear quadratic approach. The approach was developed for application to the dynamic ship positioning control problem and has the advantage that existing nonadaptive Kalman filtering systems may be easily modified to include the self-tuning feature.