Application of optimal control theory based on the evolution strategy (CMA-ES) to automatic berthing

• Published in: Journal of marine science and technology Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 221 - 233
• Main Authors: Maki, Atsuo, Sakamoto, Naoki, Akimoto, Youhei, Nishikawa, Hiroyuki, Umeda, Naoya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tokyo Springer Japan 01.03.2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Automatic control; Automotive Engineering; Berthing; Computation; Control; Control methods; Control theory; Covariance matrix; Engineering; Engineering Design; Engineering Fluid Dynamics; Evolution; Evolutionary computation; Hazards; Low speed; Mechanical Engineering; Nonlinear systems; Nonlinearity; Offshore Engineering; Optimal control; Optimization; Original Article; Real variables; Rudders; Ships; Autonomous vessel; Optimal control theory; Evolution strategy; CMA-ES; Automatic berthing
• ISSN: 0948-4280; 1437-8213
• DOI: 10.1007/s00773-019-00642-3

To realize autonomous ships in the near future, possibility of automatic berthing has been investigated. Automatic berthing is not an easy task because of some complexities that are included in the problem, such as the nonlinearity of the low-speed maneuvering model, danger of collision with berth, etc. In this research, as a first step, the authors solved the off-line automatic berthing problem. Here, the optimal control problem was modeled as minimum-time problem, and the collision risk with the berth was taken into account. The authors attempted to apply the covariance matrix adaption evolution strategy (CMA-ES), which is considered state-of-the-art in evolutionary computation approaches for optimization of real-valued variables. In the problem dealt with here, a propeller and a rudder were used only as control inputs; so, the degree of difficulty was significantly high. Nevertheless, optimal control method based on the CMA-ES successfully gave us the offline results for typical situations considered. It is noteworthy that preparation of a feasible initial control input was not required in the calculation process, which made the proposed procedure robust. The calculation method proposed here is offline, but the results could be applied as an initial guess in an online (real-time) control problem.