Neural Predictive Tracking Control of Catamaran Model Sailboat for Situation Awareness Applications

Adding artificial intelligence into the control of autonomous vehicles has become a task of steeply rising importance in development of new transportation systems and cyber-physical systems for different applications like Industry 4.0 systems and attaining Situation Awareness (SA). In contrast to the significant growth in unmanned aerial vehicle research, the study autonomous waterborne craft has remained at a relatively modest level. Paper discusses methodology of model-based modeling and simulation in Simulink/MATLAB software environment of a catamaran sailboat moving under the wind influence. The functioning of catamaran sailboat together with predictive neural network controller has been simulated for movement at the different sailing angles and wind conditions. Results confirm the applicability and good quality of neural predictive control approach.