Measures to diminish the parameter drift in the modeling of ship manoeuvring using system identification

System identification provides an effective way to predict the ship manoeuvrability. In this paper several measures are proposed to diminish the parameter drift in the parametric identification of ship manoeuvring models. The drift of linear hydrodynamic coefficients can be accounted for from the point of view of dynamic cancellation, while the drift of nonlinear hydrodynamic coefficients is explained from the point of view of regression analysis. To diminish the parameter drift, reconstruction of the samples and modification of the mathematical model of ship manoeuvring motion are carried out. Difference method and the method of additional excitation are proposed to reconstruct the samples. Using correlation analysis, the structure of a manoeuvring model is simplified. Combined with the measures proposed, support vector machines based identification is employed to determine the hydrodynamic coefficients in a modified Abkowitz model. Experimental data from the free-running model tests of a KVLCC2 ship are analyzed and the hydrodynamic coefficients are identified. Based on the regressive model, simulation of manoeuvres is conducted. Comparison between the simulation results and the experimental results demonstrates the validity of the proposed measures.