Experimental investigation of shallow water effect on vessel steering model using system identification method

The shallow water effect on vessel steering model is investigated using the system identification method. Manoeuvring tests were carried out using a scaled free-running ship model with 4 different water depths and 2 speeds. Optimal Truncated LS-SVM is employed to estimate the parameters and the results are validated by comparing with analytical results of Nomoto model, meanwhile, the results are also compared with the least square method, classical LS-SVM, and nu-SVM. The results show that the truncated LS-SVM improve the accuracy of parameter estimation. Based on the obtained parameters, the shallow water effect on the parameters of vessel steering models was discussed and the results revealed that shallow water damages the manoeuvrability of a ship.