Rudder roll damping system for ships using fuzzy logic control

In the paper, a rudder roll damping system is designed using fuzzy logic control. The control scheme is composed of two fuzzy controllers and a fuzzy gain scheduling algorithm. The fuzzy logic controllers are designed so that they outperform linear PD controllers. Efficiency of the proposed fuzzy control scheme is studied and illustrated by simulations carried out with a container ship model in presence of rudder and rudder-rate saturations, and wave disturbances. Comparisons with classical rudder-roll linear and gain-scheduled control laws are performed.