Path Following of a Ship Sailing in Restricted Waters Based on an Extended Updated-Gain High-Gain Observer

Abstract

The paper studies the path following of a ship sailing in restricted waters based on an output feedback control, which consists of a state feedback control law and an extended updated-gain high-gain observer. According to the separation principle, the state feedback control and the extended updated-gain high-gain observer are designed separately. The state feedback control law is designed based on a robust guaranteed cost control method assuming that system states are measurable. Sufficient conditions are given for the control based on a linear uncertain system. The extended updated-gain high-gain observer, whose gains are updated according to the nonlinear functions of available evaluation errors, is used to reconstruct system states. Then the output feedback control is obtained by replacing states value in the state feedback control law with its estimation yielded by the state observer. Numerical simulations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed control method for the path following of a ship sailing in restricted waters.