Path Following for Underactuated Marine Vessels

This paper investigates the problem Of making an underactuated marine vessel)1 an arbitrary differentiable Jordan curve. A solution is proposed which relies on a hierarchical control methodology involving the simultaneous stabilization of two nested sets, and results in a smooth, static, and time-invariant feedback. The methodology in question effectively reduces the control problem to one of path following for a kinematic point-mass. It is shown that as long as the curvature of the path is smaller than a quantity dependent on the mass and damping parameters of the ship, path following is achieved with uniformly bounded sway speed. (C) 2016, IFAC (International Federation Control) Hosting By Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserverd.