Real-time control of ship's roll motion with gyrostabilisers

The safety of ship manoeuvring operations is greatly affected by large roll motions under severe wave conditions. While existing studies have focused on optimizing hydrodynamic performance devices, these approaches may not be effective under realistic sea conditions where wave frequency and direction are irregular. Thus, predicting ship motion tendencies and implementing a reasonable control approach is crucial for improving ship safety. This study proposes a novel and practical control strategy that can effectively suppress roll motion of ships under realistic random wave conditions. The approach utilizes a real-time controller based on model predictive control (MPC) that is actuated by a dual gyrostabilizer. The ship's roll motion response in beam waves is calculated using one degree-of-freedom hydrodynamic modeling, and the wave memory effect is taken into consideration by employing system identification. A synthetic mathematical model of MPC and the dual gyrostabilizer method is introduced in state-space representation to compensate for wave excitation moment in real-time. The proposed method's efficacy is validated by comparing with a roll stabilization scenario of a particular ship in the literature, and control performance of a standard ship under regular and irregular wave conditions is separately discussed. Results indicate that the proposed method can significantly reduce roll motion amplitude and is feasible for nonlinear ship motion control problems. This study sheds light on the multi-degree-of-freedom motion control of ships under beam wave conditions.