Approximate dynamic programming for ship course control

Dynamic programming (DP) is a useful tool for solving many control problems, but for its complexity in computation, traditional DP control algorithms are riot satisfactory in fact. So we must look for a new method which not only has the advantages of DP but also is easier in computation. In this paper, approximate dynamic programming (ADP) based controller system has been used to solve a ship heading angle keeping problem. The ADP controller comprises successive adaptations of two neural networks, namely action network and critic network which approximates the Bellman equations associated with DP. The Simulation results show that the ship keeps the desired heading satisfactorily.