Roll Stabilization Control of Sailboats

:This paper reports a way of dynamically controlling the sail of a sailboat to reduce the heel angle and roll motion caused by the wind. This is mainly to increase robustness and safety for autonomous sailboats but could also be used to increase comfort for crew. The solution consists of a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controlling the moment created by the sail. A lookup table will then choose the optimal angle of the sail, optimized for maximum forward acceleration, given the relative wind direction and desired moment. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the approach.