Station-keeping of moored vessels by reliability-based optimization

Floating marine structures are frequently kept in position by means of mooring lines in addition to a thruster system. Various types of control schemes for the thruster system are first investigated based on a simplified response model. In particular, the role of structural reliability criteria applied to the mooring system is investigated. Subsequently, a more refined control algorithm based on such reliability criteria is introduced. The performance of this control system is demonstrated by numerical simulations.