An inverse optimal approach to ship course-keeping control

This paper deals with the ship course tracking control problem in a novel inverse optimal control approach. The inverse optimal stabilization problem and inverse optimal gain assignment problem are firstly extended to general systems affine in the control with unknown control gain. It is shown that a sufficient condition to solve the inverse optimal control problem is the existence of a stabilization control law in a special form for a corresponding auxiliary system. Then, by employing backstepping technique, control laws are designed which solve the inverse optimal stabilization, inverse optimal adaptive stabilization and inverse optimal adaptive gain assignment problem of ship course control system, respectively. Simulations are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.