Model Predictive Control for Ship Path Tracking with Disturbances

Path tracking is fundamental to intelligent navigation. Disturbances and uncertainties are inevitable during ship path tracking. Enhancing the robustness of the controller usually increases the computational costs. Model Predictive Control (MPC) considers the latest available measurement of the system's state and up-to-date information, and its predictive property provides the controller the capability to be robust against disturbances and uncertainties. This paper designs a controller for ship path tracking based on the MPC. Moreover, we investigate the boundary of environmental disturbances that the MPC controller can track the path with acceptable accuracy.