A study is presented on the application of particle swarm optimization (PSO) to design intelligent autopilots for ship steering. Two versions of PSO-conventional and anti-predatory (APSO) - have been used. The autopilot consists of a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) emulating the characteristics of manual ship steering. The parameters for the FLC are optimized using PSO and APSO. The robustness of the autopilot based on the optimized FLC is illustrated through the simulation of a realistic nonlinear ship model. The steering performance of the optimal FLC is compared with a PID type autopilot designed with and without PSO.
['B. Samanta', 'C. Nataraj']
Design of intelligent ship autopilots using particle swarm optimization