Position keeping control of an autonomous sailboat

Christophe Viel , Ulysse Vautier , Jian Wan , Luc Jaulin (1)

1 Lab-STICC_ENSTAB_CID_PRASYS

This paper addresses the problem of reaching and keeping a target position for a sailboat. A method to control sail angle is proposed, using an adaptive adjustment of the sail to regulate the acceleration of the sailboat. A tacking strategy is defined to navigate into the wind, arrive upwind to slow down the boat and then to stay close to the target point. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The stability of the sailboat using the proposed control has been proven.

Mots clés: Position keeping; autonomous sailboat; non-linear control

Domaines: Automatique

Christophe Viel, Ulysse Vautier, Jian Wan, Luc Jaulin. Position keeping control of an autonomous sailboat. 11th IFAC Conference on Control Applications in Marine Systems, Robotics, and Vehicles CAMS 2018, Sep 2018, Opatija, Croatia. pp.14 - 19, ⟨10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.09.462⟩. ⟨hal-01935881⟩