Ship Motion Control

Book excerpt: engineers into a single volume whilst concentrating on two important research control design problems: autopilots with rudder-roll stabilization and fin and combined rudder-fin stabilization. He has been guided by some of the leading marine control academics, in particular Mogens Blanke and Thor Fossen; indeed Chapters 3 and 4 on kinematics and kinetics of ship motion are jointly authored with Professor Fossen. There are some 240 cited references – an invaluable resource for interested readers. The volume is likely to appeal to a wide range of readers who will each be able to extract something different from the various parts of the monograph. Part I has some four chapters on the modelling fundamentals including kinematics, dynamics and actuators. Part II is a very useful survey of the ship roll stabilization problem and how ship roll performance is measured and assessed. This clearly motivates the human necessity for roll-reduction and roll stabilization. Parts III and IV move on to the control systems aspects of the various stabilization designs. Valuable material here includes a study of system performance limitations as caused by the presence of non-minimum phase characteristics and actuator saturation. Chapter 10 has an interesting historical review of these marine control problems stretching back some thirty-years into the 1970s.