Research on simulation of course control for large

ship with wave disturbances in different sea

conditions
Xinqian Bian1, Yuanhui Wang1, Xiaoyun Zhang2 and Guoqing Xia1
IEEE Conference Publishing
1. Best Sea Assembly Institute (BSA) of Harbin Engineering University(HEU)
NO.31School building of HEU, 150001, China
2. College of Power and Energy Engineering of Harbin Engineering University(HEU)
Power research building of HEU, 150001, China
Abstract- When a large ship sails on the sea, it must meet the
random wave disturbances and produce complicated movement
form. It is very important to consider the random wave
disturbance force and moment in the ship manoeuvring
simulation and ship control system design. So it is really
important to research on wave signal and figure out the
disturbance force and moment of ocean wave acting on ship. The
wave is a very complex random process, and the shape of ship is
also very complicated, therefore it is a more complicated problem
to compute the wave disturbance force and moment acting on
ship. It mainly solves the difficult problem of numerical
simulation of wave disturbances in ship motion control and
simulation area. The wave disturbance force and moment acting
on the ship sailing on the sea are simulated. The influence of
ocean wave to the four freedom degree movement of large ship is
also researched and analyzed under different sea conditions.
Based on statistical superposition theory, Pierson-Moskowitz (PM) single-parameter standard wave spectrum is used to simulate
a random long-crested sea wave. A kind of wave disturbance
mathematical model is established and then the random wave
disturbance force and moment effecting on the large ship is
calculated and simulated real time under different sea conditions.
A ship autopilot is used to control the ship course and the ship
motion trajectory under different wave encounter angles at
different sea conditions are attained by simulation. The
calculated wave disturbances are quite significant in four
freedom degrees of the large ship. Thus, the ship course must be
controlled. A ship autopilot is used to control the large ship to
keep or change the ship course. Finally, the ship control
simulation with different wave disturbances is successfully
realized. The simulation experiment results show that the
random wave disturbances have big influences on the large ship
at sea and the wave influences are different in different sea
conditions or different wave encounter angles, which result in
different ship control effects. The established wave disturbance
model and the wave disturbance simulation results have a good
importance on the ship control system research.

I.

INTRODUCTION

and moment of ocean wave acting on ship. The wave is a very

complex random process, and the shape of ship is also very
complicated, therefore it is a more complicated problem to
compute the wave disturbance force and moment acting on
ship. Hongzhang Jin[1-3] once put forward a kind of wave
simulation method based on the random wave frequency
spectrum, which was applied in fin stabilizer control system.
Wenjun Fang[4] studied the ship movement in waves by the
method of ship trials. Many national scholars still carry on
simulation research about the wave force effecting on the
ship[5-8], but only the influence of a wave drift force to the
ships was considered in most of these researches, with no
consideration of long-crested ocean wave.
This paper carries on a further research on the disturbance
force and moment of long-crested ocean wave acting on a
certain large ship. The wave disturbance force and moment is
added to the four freedom degree of ship mathematical model
respectively. A kind of PID autopilot is used to control the
course of the large ship[9]. The simulation research of large
ship course control is carried on under different sea conditions
and different encounter angle of waves.
II.

THE SHIP MOVEMENT MATHEMATICAL MODEL

The ships sailing on the sea have six degree of freedom of

surging, swaying, heaving, pitching, rolling and yawing. This
paper sets up a model based on the assumption that the ship
sails on an infinitely deep water, the ship hull is a rigid body,
the influence of ship pitching and heaving is neglected, the
external force can be linear superposition without any
consideration about non-linear factors.
The four degree of freedom motion mathematical
simulation model of large ships under the wave disturbances is
established based on the MMG separation concept.
.

When a large ship sails on the sea, it must meet the random
wave disturbances and produce complicated movement form.
It is very important to consider the random wave disturbance
force and moment in the ship maneuvering simulation and
ship control system design. So it is really important to
research on wave signal and figure out the disturbance force

0-933957-38-1/09/$20.00 2009 MTS

(m + 11 ) u (m + 22 )vr 26r 2 = X H + X P + X R + XWave

.

( m + 22 ) v+ (m + 11 )ur + 26 r = YH + YP + YR + YWave
( Iz + J z ) r+ 26 v+ ur = NH + NP + NR + NWave
.

(I x + J x ) p = KH + KR + Kwave

(1)

Where, m stands for the ship mass, 11 , 22 and 26 stand for

the ship added mass, I z and I x stand for the rotational moment
of inertia, J z and J x stand for added mass moment of inertia,
and their formula to estimate can be found in the reference[5];
X , Y and N represent respectively force and moment weight
at x , y and z axes of the ship. The subscript H , P , R and
Wave respectively stands for the hull hydrodynamic forces,
the propeller thrust force, the rudder force, and the wave
disturbance force. K stands for the horizontal rotation torque.
III.

WAVE DISTURBANCE FORCE AND MOMENT

3
2
, e = +
V | cos |
g
2
2
When ships is in the random beam waves,

3
, e =
e = or e =
2
2
When ships is in the random following or quartering waves,
3

2
< e < , e = V | cos |
g
2
2

< e <

A. Mathematical description of the random wave

The wave is considered to be a steady and random process.
Limited sub-waves are selected; each sub-wave has random
amplitude, wavelength and periods. The wave is expressed by
adding all these sub-waves together [10].

g
4V cos e

(t ) = ai cos(k1i x + k2i y i t + i )

(2)

By wave theory, P-M spectrum is selected, and its

expression is below.
8.1 103 g 2
3.11
S ( ) =
exp( 2 4 )
(3)
h1/ 3
5
The wave spectrum is narrow band. The energy is mainly
concentrated at a certain band. The equal frequency division
method is used to select limited harmonic waves to simulate
the wave. The scope of spectrum is expressed below.
3.11 1/ 4
)
L = ( 2
(4)
H1/ 3 ln

H = (

3.11
)1/ 4
H1/2 3 ln(1 )

(5)

Where, = (H L ) / M , ( M =50~100).

i = L + (i 1)
(6)
Then the amplitude of each harmonic wave in the random
wave is attained.
ai = 2S (i )
(7)
The initial phase angle i of each harmonic wave is a
random variable which is distributed evenly between 0 and
2 . After the amplitude and initial phase angle of each
harmonic wave is determined, each harmonic wave can be
defined. The long-crested random wave can be simulated by
(2).
B. The wave disturbance force and moment acting on a ship
It is very important to consider the encounter period when
computing the wave disturbance force. The encounter angle
e is the angle between the direction of wave propagation and
the ship course. It takes the clockwise measurement from the
direction of wave propagation.
The encounter frequency is expressed in the below form.
2
V
cos e )
(8)
e = V cos = (1
g
g
When ships is in the random head or bow waves,

g
V cos e

g
2V cos e

i =1

Figure 1. The relation of wave frequency

and encounter frequency

Three kinds of instances mentioned above can be shown in

figure 1.Thereinto, the third instance is more complicated,
which can be divided into two areas, namely the wave going
beyond ship area and the ship going beyond wave area. The
wave going beyond ship area can also be divided into two
areas, marked as I and . The ship going beyond wave area is
marked as III. The boundary of three areas is expressed as
follows.
The wave going beyond ship area is
g
I, 0 < <
2V cos e
g
g
< <
2V cos e
V cos e
The ship going beyond wave area is
g
III, >
V cos e
The disturbance torque of surging, swaying, rolling and
yawing of each sub-waves acting on the ship is expressed as
follows.
X = ge
k A( x)cos(k x t )dx
k B( x)
(9)
Y = 2 g T ( x)e
sin(
)cos(k x t )dx
2
,

kT ( x )/2

1 ai

ei

kT ( x )/2

ai

ei

k B( x)
Ni = 2 g ai T ( x)e kT ( x)/ 2 x sin( 2
)cos(k1 x ei t )dx
L
2
B( x) T 2 ( x)
B( x)
)] +
Ki = 2 g ai [ekT ( x )/2 [T ( x) z0 sin(k2
)+
sin(k2
L
2
2
2
B( x) 1
B( x)
1 kT ( x ) B( x)
e
[
cos(k2
) sin(k2
)]]cos(k1 x ei t )dx
k2
k2
2
2
2

Where, T ( x) , B ( x ) and A( x ) is respectively draft, waterline

width and Cross-sectional area at each stations of the ship.
The disturbance force and moment of ocean wave to
ship X i , Yi , N i and Ki produced by the i-th sub-wave i (t ) of
(t ) are derived by the above formula, and then the total
disturbance force and moment (t ) can be expressed below.

X = Xi
i =1

Y = Yi

i =1

n
N = N

i =1

n
L = K

i =1

(10)

without any action of rudder because it is free from outside

disturbance force in still water.
Experiment 2: The ship sails in sea state 4 with significant
wave height of 2.04m. The wave is always from north to south,
and the course angle changes through 90~60~30~0 with
control of autopilot .
6

x N

COURSE CONTROL OF A LARGE SHIP UNDER

IV.

DIFFERENT SEA CONDITIONS

2
0
-2
-4

pusi

y N

300

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

x 10

0
-2

100

200

300

x 10

50

-5

-10

100

200

300

x 10

200

400
600

deltar

800

1000

40

0.5
0
-0.5
-1

100

200

300

20

Figure 4. The wave force and moment in sea state 4

-20

pusi

100

-40

200

400

600

800

1000

Figure 2. The change of course angle and rudder angle in still water

pusi

deltar

200

-50

50

-50

9000

100

200

300

8000

400
500
600
700

deltar

800

900

1000

400

800

900

1000

40
deltar

7000
6000
x

100

-4

N*m

pusi

100

0
7

N*m

In this paper, the above method is used for a certain large

ship to carry out simulation tests. The main parameters of the
ship are described as follows. The ship length is 303.0m; the
ship breadth is 32.5m; the distance between the gravity centre
of ship and the water surface is 5.2m; the velocity of the ship
is 9.2 m/s.
Experiment 1: The ship sails in still water, and the course
angle changes through 90~60~30~0 with control of
autopilot.
Under the above assumption, the simulation results course
control and the movement trajectory of the large ship are
shown in figure 2 and figure 3.

x 10

5000
4000

20
0
-20
-40

3000

100

200

300

500

600

700

2000

Figure 5. The change of course angle and rudder angle in sea state 4

1000
0
-1000

1000

2000

3000

4000
5000

6000
y

7000

8000

9000

10000

Figure 3. The ship trajectory with course change in still water

From above simulation results, the ship course was

controlled well by autopilot when change its heading. After
the direction was stable, the ship can keep fixed course angle

pusi

8000
7000

pusi

50
0
-50

5000

100

200

4000

300

400
500
600
700

deltar

800

900

1000

800

900

1000

40

3000
2000
1000
0

20
0
-20
-40

1000

2000

3000

4000 5000

6000
y

7000

8000

9000

10000

200

300

400
500

600

700

7000
6000
5000
x

x 10

-5

100

8000

10

Figure 8. The change of course angle and rudder angle in sea state 6

Figure 6. The ship trajectory with course change in sea state 4

Experiment 3: The ship sails in sea state 6 with significant

wave height of 4.42m. The wave is always from north to south,
and the course angle changes through 90~60~30~0 with
control of autopilot .
x N

100

deltar

6000

-1000

150

9000

4000
3000
2000
1000

100

200

300

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

y N

x 10

-1000

0.5

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000
y

6000

7000

8000

9000

Figure 9. The ship trajectory with course change in sea state 6

-0.5
-1

100

200

300

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

400

500
t

600

700

800

900

1000

10

N*m

x 10

1
0
-1
-2

100

200

300

1
N*m

x 10

0.5
0
-0.5
-1

100

200

300

Figure 7. The wave force and moment in sea state 6

Through above three sets of simulation experiments, some

conclusions can be drawn as follows.
(1) From the simulation results of wave disturbance force
and moment, it is shown that the force and moment produced
by random waves is random and oscillated and can attain a
higher quantity class. Thus, it is obvious that these wave
forces and moments have many influences in ship control
system design and operations at sea. It is very important to
consider the wave disturbances.
(2) In comparison of figure 4 and figure 7, the wave
disturbance force and moment of the ship have many changes
under different sea conditions. The higher sea state is, the
larger the disturbances are. And the larger disturbances will
results in the worse control system performance. In contrast of
figure 2, figure 5 and figure 8, the better control effect can be
attained at the lower sea state.
(3) In the process of simulation, when the angle of course is
changed through 90~60~30~0 under the control of
autopilot, and the encounter angle is also changed through
90~120~150~180, namely experienced the process of
beam sea, bow sea and head sea. Seen from figure 4 or figure
7, the wave disturbance force and moment all have very
obvious changes. In Beam Sea, ship body is subjected to a
bigger transverse force but a smaller lengthways force
comparatively. With the encounter angle changes bigger, the
transverse force acting on the ship hull changes smaller
continuously, but the lengthways force continuously changes

bigger. In the end, the encounter angle becomes 180, namely

head waves, the transverse force is minimum, and the
lengthways force is maximum relatively. In addition, the
figure 2, figure 5 and figure 8 shows that the ship course
control effects are better under different sea conditions.
V.

CONCLUSIONS

The simulation results show that the random waves have big
disturbances for the ship sailing on the sea. Without any
control action, the ship will can't keep on a designated course
or track.
In the meantime, the wave disturbance forces and moments
are different in different sea conditions or different encounter
angle. The paper gives the changing rules of the wave
disturbances in different sea conditions and different
encounter angle by simulation. Besides, the corresponded
effects of course control are also compared, which shows that
the size of wave disturbances influences the effect of ship
control.
Therefore, the establishment of the wave disturbance model
and the simulation of the wave disturbance force and moment
really have important value to the research of the ship control
system. In the paper, the established wave disturbance model
has a higher accuracy to calculate the wave disturbance force
and moment for the sailing ship, which can satisfy the need of
the ship control system design and other simulations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks for all the researchers in Best Sea Assembly
Institute (BSA) of Harbin Engineering University.
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