A Nonlinear Unified State-Space Model for Ship Maneuvering and Control in a Seaway

This article presents a unified state-space model for ship maneuvering, station-keeping, and control in a seaway. The frequency-dependent potential and viscous damping terms, which in classic theory results in a convolution integral not suited for real-time simulation, is compactly represented by using a state-space formulation. The separation of the vessel model into a low-frequency model (represented by zero-frequency added mass and damping) and a wave-frequency model (represented by motion transfer functions or RAOs), which is commonly used for simulation, is hence made superfluous.