Simultaneous optimization of control gains and reference filter coefficients for trajectory tracking control

Research on vessel automation and autonomy is currently being conducted by various countries and institutions. Safe and accurate ship control algorithms are crucial to realize automated operation. Actuator drive constraints of a target ship may jeopardize the stability of the control law and require complex theory. In this study, we include a penalty term to the control law gain optimization stage of dynamic positioning systems to account for the amounts by which the actuator input value and its rate of change exceed the constraint. The parameters for generating a suitable reference path for the control law are identified simultaneously with the control gains. The simulation results show that the proposed method can realize control parameters and a reference design with excellent tracking performance while determining the cost of the controller design by considering the effects of both the actuators and rate saturation.