Reliability analysis of H-infinity control for a container ship in way-point tracking

•The aim of this paper is to evaluate the reliability analysis of a designed H∞ controller for a container ship.•Three random variables characterizing wind speed, wind direction and wave direction are considered as the inputs.•The results show the capability of the designed controller to compensate the effects of disturbances in way point tracking control.

Efficient control of ships in a designed trajectory is always a significant charge for ship maneuverings. The purpose of this paper is to design a robust H∞ controller and a reliability analysis for a container ship in a way-point tracking. First, the H∞ controller is designed for a container ship because of model parameters’ uncertainties and external disturbances such as waves, winds and ocean currents. Then, to evaluate the reliability of the designed controller, a well-known reliability analysis technique is employed to achieve the predefined heading angle overshoot (that is less than 20%) in way-point tracking. To do this, three random variables including wind speed, wind direction and wave direction are considered as the inputs due to their significant effect on overshoot, compared to other variables. The results demonstrate the capability of the designed H∞ controller against modeling uncertainties and external disturbances in way point tracking control.