Jia, F. and Chen, M., 2019. Design of a nonlinear heading control system for ocean going ships based on backstepping technique. In: Gong, D.; Zhu, H., and Liu, R. (eds.), Selected Topics in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 94, pp. 515–519. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

In order to solve the nonlinear uncertain system of ship heading control and deal with the influence of interference factors such as external environment and ship speed on ship heading control, this paper proposes a ship controller design method combining the backstepping technique and the adaptive control theory considering the robustness, at first, it describes the mathematical model for ship motion and proposes a nonlinear ship heading control system mathematical model considering the influence of external interference factors; Then, on this basis, the paper designs a ship heading adaptive nonlinear controller with robustness function and achieves the adaptive tracking of ship heading. Simulation results show that the heading control system with adaptive robustness can eliminate influence of certain interferences. The research results indicate that the study of this paper is of great significance for further promoting the development of ship heading nonlinear control theory.