Everyday about 90% of cargos are delivered by ships, and thousands of vessels enter and depart the international container harbors such as Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Busan, Rotterdam, etc. Maneuvering at harbor is known as the most sophisticated and difficult procedure, because the effectiveness of actuators during low speed berthing is reduced. In this paper, a new berthing method is discussed. Tugboats are combined with damper systems to ensure safe berthing. A mathematical model describing the interaction between unactuated ship, tugboats and damper systems is presented. An optimal controller is designed to maneuver the ship without oscillation and overshoot. MCL (Marine Cybernetics Lab) model ship is used to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed approach through MatLab simulation.

No abstract