Waypoint path controller for ships

The paper presents and discusses tests of a waypoint controller used to sail a ship along the desired route. The planned desired route for the moving ship is given as a set of waypoints connected with straight lines. The ship's control is based on the rudder blade deflection angle as a commanded parameter. The task of the controller is to determine the rudder angle which will allow the ship to sail along the desired route segment. The controller algorithm consists of two parts, the first of which is used for controlling the ship motion along linear segments of the desired route, while the second part is used when changing to the next route segment. A switching mechanism is designed to choose the relevant part of the control algorithm. The quality of operation of the ship motion control algorithm was tested on the training ship Blue Lady, at the Ship Handling Research and Training Centre located on the lake Silm at Kamionka near Iława, Poland.