Cross Track Error and Proportional Turning Rate Guidance of Marine Vehicles

Abstract

The problem of turning rate guidance and control of marine vehicles is considered. Feedback with feed forward rudder control is used to deliver a specified turning rate for the vehicle, while a guidance law is employed to create the necessary sequence of turning rate commands which would allow convergence to a desired geographical path. Two different guidance schemes are presented and analyzed, namely, cross track error and proportional turning rate guidance. Stability conditions are computed explicitly, while nonlinear analysis techniques illustrate the significance of design parameters on the final system response that cannot be inferred from linearized stability results.