Nonlinear Model Predictive Control with Obstacle Avoidance for Underactuated Ships

Abstract

This study examines the control problem of an underactuated ship. Model predictive control (MPC) is a type of optimal feedback control in which the control performance over a finite future is optimized with a performance index that has a moving initial time and terminal time. MPC enables optimization of control performance while taking the constraints on state and control variables into account. The objective of this study is to propose nonlinear MPC method for trajectory tracking and obstacle avoidance of an underactuated ship. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulations.