Parametric control allocation for a class of marine vessels

The paper presents two parametric control allocation systems for vessels equipped with two independent non-fully orientable thrusters. This particular class of vehicle includes a large number of marine small/medium size boats, and the capability to actuate independently those actuators will contribute effectively to manoeuvring problems in restricted areas, as harbour approaches and port movements. The proposed control-allocation methods are presented in the form of parametric sequential quadratic programming in case of presence of unbounded references (i.e. an upper-layer controller), and as a direct parametric mapping in case of norm-∞norm-∞ bounded references (i.e. through human interface devices). Simulation results and comparison with existing methods from the literature prove the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

► Control-allocation problem for a class of small size vessels. ► Sequential QP control-allocation method for unbounded references. ► Parametric closed-form solution for norm-inf bounded references. ► Simulation and comparison with existing control-allocation methods.