동력시스템공학회지 제24권 제5호 pp.

92-101 2020년 10월 ISSN 2713-8429(Print) ISSN 2713-8437(Online)

Journal of Power System Engineering https://doi.org/10.9726/kspse.2020.24.5.092
Vol. 24, No. 5, pp. 92-101, October 2020

A Study on Vessel Motion Control with Towing Ropes and

Dampers for Berthing

Young-Bok Kim*, Hwan-Cheol Park** and Chang-Woo Kim***†

(Received 6 October 2020, Revision received 13 October 2020, Accepted 15 October 2020)

Abstract : The vessel maneuvering problem in the harbour area is generating considerable interests in
terms of marine cybernetics. The vessel is operated by the pilot and moves at ultimately low or zero
speed in shallow water area. In this case, the vessel is usually assisted by the cooperation of thrusters,
main propulsion system, tugboats and pilots, etc. In this paper, we suggest a new vessel berthing
technique using dampers and winches as a solution for complex and dangerous berthing work. In the
proposed berthing method, we design the controller to counteract the waves and other effects for
guaranteeing the safety during the berthing process. Also, in this paper, experiments are conducted to
verify the proposed vessel berthing method and the effectiveness of the designed control system in
which unpredictable external force is applied. Finally, the experiment results show that the vessel could
approach the defined position in time with effective control action made from designed controller.

Key Words：Vessel, Tension, Harbour, Berthing system, Winch

1. Introduction dangerous collisions to appear between the

maneuvered vessel and the moored ones because of
Vessel berthing is widely considered as the most unpredictable vessel motion.4)
complicated process in the marine control and Various approaches have been tried to make
automation field. 1-8)
A reason is that the some solutions about this problem. Bui and et al.5-8)
hydrodynamic of the vessel considerably changes, conducted automatic ship berthing by using bow and
and its controllability is greatly cut down when the stern thrusters. The authors introduced a steering
vessel moves from deep to shallow water. motion model of a vessel and identified all of the

Furthermore, by only manipulating the main model parameters.

An observer based optimal controller was
propellers and thrusters, it is very easy for
designed to cope with the uncertain ship dynamics
to obtain desirable control performance by
***†Chang-Woo Kim(ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3553
estimating system states. This approach seems to be
-8383) : Professor, Korea Institute of Maritime and Fisheries
Technology.: ckddn12@daum.net, Tel : 051-629-6197
a useful method, but the reduced actuator
**Hwan-Cheol Park(ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5670 controllability under low-speed conditions has not
-7246) : First Engineer, Training Ship Kaya, Pukyong fully been resolved.
National University.
In 1994, Hasegawa and Fukutomi suggested an
*Young-Bok Kim(ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6035 -6744)
: Professor, Department of Mechanical System Engineering,
artificial neural network control strategy for
Pukyong National University. automatic vessel berthing.6) However, the

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 Young-Bok Kim, Hwan-Cheol Park and Chang-Woo Kim

Fig. 1 Schematic drawing of the proposed berthing system

conventional methods proposed in this time are The most complicate area (or distance) for berthing
kinds of automatic maneuvering technologies or may be confined in 10[m] from ship to quay side.
methods which could not give any useful solutions In this area, generally, the tugboats and the pilots
for completing berthing work. assistance are needed to occupy safe working process.
Therefore, the authors propose a new method to The object of this study is to show an easier and
complete the final berthing process with preserving safer method than conventional technologies. In the
working safety. The proposed system configuration proposed method, any additional assistance system
is illustrated in Fig. 1. As seen from Fig. 1, the such as tugboat or pilot is not necessary except
two cylinders and two winch systems are prepared damper and winch systems installed on the land
for controlling ship motion. Pulling the vessel by side. The possibility of the proposed method is
winch with rope and pushing it with damper, we presented by following experiment.
can move the vessel to the final position more As previously mentioned, two pairs of winch and
safely. It means that the complicate berthing work damper cylinder are prepared for controlling ship
could be completed by controlling winches and motion. For starting berthing work, at first, the ends
dampers with designed control system9-15) without of dampers are attached and the winch ropes are
any supporting system. The effectiveness and connected to the vessel simultaneously.
usefulness of proposed method are clearly presented After that, the berthing process is started by
by experiment results. controlling pulling and pushing forces made from
actuators. It means that the desirable control
2. Problem Statement performance and safe berthing work can be achieved
by controlling winch and damper systems properly
The system proposed and intended for experiment and effectively.
is shown in Fig. 2. The authors use a vessel model
to execute the berthing experiment, where two pairs 2.1 System description
of motor and cylinder are installed in the harbor side. The system configuration of the controlled system
The proposed idea and system configuration are illustrated in Fig. 2 is represented as Fig. 3.
initialized by considering final berthing condition. Then, let us describe a model of controlled

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 A Study on Vessel Motion Control with Towing Ropes and Dampers for Berthing

Fig. 2 Experimental equipment configuration

system based on Fig. 3. The dynamic equation of the heading angle in the earth-fixed coordinate
motion in the horizontal plane of the controlled frame.    represents the surge, sway and
vessel assisted by dampers and winches is written yaw rates of the vessel in the body fixed coordinate
as follows:5,7,8) frame.   used to express the kinematic equation
of motion is a rotation matrix in yaw direction,
    (1)

cos  sin   

    . (2) 
   sin  cos   (3)
   
   describes the inertial position and
And  is the inertia matrix which includes
added mass:

     
 



     ,
    
 (4)

where  is the mass of vessel,  is the inertia

moment about the z-axis of the vessel,
     describe hydrodynamic added
mass.  is the damping matrix,

    
       .
      
 (5)

Fig. 3 System configuration of vessel berthing

Where      represent the linear
system with dampers and winches

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 Young-Bok Kim, Hwan-Cheol Park and Chang-Woo Kim

Table 1 Specifications of the winch systems follows (   ):

Items Value Unit
Winch drum diameter 46 mm           . (8)
DC motor power supply 48 V
DC motor nominal torque 192 Nㆍm
             . (9)
DC motor power 150 W
DC motor gear ratio 74:1
Encoder resolution 500 ppr Where,    : mass of vessel,  : total
Motor driver power 250 W damping coefficient of vessel,  : rope stiffness,
 : displacement of vessel in  direction,  :
damping coefficients.        is the control winded rope length from winch. And      
forces in surge and sway directions and yaw  ,  are the inertia moment, damping
moment. In this paper,  is the result of combined coefficient, stiffness, torque and radius of winch
efforts of dampers and winches as shown in Fig. 1. system, respectively. Using the following relations:

    . (6)        (10)

        

Where,        presents pushing

forces by dampers and pulling forces by winches.      (11)

       defines the force

then Eq. (8) and Eq. (9) are represented as follows:
direction of the dampers and winches.
  is the geometric configuration matrix
   
which captures the relationship between the             . (12)
 
       
  
dampers, the winches and the vessel,

            (13)
           
  
    

 
 
         
            (7)      
       
                      .

With  represents sin   and  describes Where,

cos.
       ,
2.2 Vessel mooring system modeling 
       ,
Based on the preparation of experiment apparatus,
the authors performed the system identification
which are identified by experiment. And,    is
process for describing the dynamic characteristics of
vessel berthing system for a half model. Then the the voltage input to the winch actuator,     is

dynamic equations of berthing system consisting of assumed as uncertain parts which may not be
pulling and pushing mechanism are represented as exactly described or ignored in the model.

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 A Study on Vessel Motion Control with Towing Ropes and Dampers for Berthing

berthing strategy. It is called a semi-automatic

berthing method or technique. In this method, the
dampers are manually controlled. On the other hand,
the winches are automatically controlled such that
the rope tension forces are kept in the defined
values. For example, if the damper control valves
(a) input voltage are closed, the winches rotate and pull the vessel
until the tension forces approach the target values. It
means that the vessel motion or position depends on
the expended length of damper cylinder under the
appropriately defined rope tension.
For accomplishing full-automatic berthing system,
two actuator system should be actively controlled.
(b) output tension However, the semi-automatic berthing method is
Fig. 4. Step response for identifying the system most friendly one for real working condition and
parameters. (a) is the voltage input to the environment. Based on this idea, the authors tried
winch actuator(motor). (b) is the tension berthing experiment in several times such that the
response results will be shown in the next chapter.

Especially, in order to identify the parameters 3. Experiment

shown in Eq. (13), several experiments have been
tried such that one result is illustrated in Fig. 4. 3.1 Experimental apparatus
In this case, 10[V] electric power (shown in (a) In order to evaluate the usefulness of designed
of Fig. 4) was applied to the winch system such control system, the experimental apparatus is set up
that the rope tension force was obtained as shown and tested in the water basin. The experiment was
in (b) of Fig. 4. In this figure, the dotted line is the performed in water basin using a vessel model
tension force of real system get from experiment (weight : 215 kg, length : 2 m, width : 1 m).
and the solid line is calculated tension force The vessel motions are measured and controlled
obtained from a identified model. by data acquisition system PCI-6229 (NI) with
Furthermore, using the relations as seen in Eq. LabVIEW software.
(10)~(13), the parameter values are calculated as A pair of winch and damper system is installed
  ,   ,   . on the harbor side. The distance from the vessel to
the harbor is measured by the Laser sensor mounted
2.3 Berthing strategy on the plate, the rope tension is measured by Load
We may provide many types of berthing cell sensor and the cylinder pressure is measured by
techniques and methods based on the proposed pressure sensor. All apparatus used for experiment
system configuration. In the proposed berthing are represented in Fig. 2 and Table 1.
system, two dampers and two winches are provided
and controlled to achieve the given objective. 3.2 Controller design
Here, the authors introduce a considerable simple We design a controller based on sliding mode

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 Young-Bok Kim, Hwan-Cheol Park and Chang-Woo Kim

control scheme in order to keep the desired rope And, the function ∙ is defined as follows:
tension. Especially, the super-twisting algorithm is
introduced for designing sliding mode controller.  
i f ⋆ 
⋆ ⋆ ∈     i f ⋆  . (21)
Then, a sliding surface is given as follows: 

 i f ⋆ 

       . (14)
Then, we need to verify the system stability
condition with the control law Eq. (19).
Where   is positive parameters. The error  
By substituting Eq. (19) into Eq. (17), the
between the desired winch angle   and the actual
equivalent sliding manifold is calculated as
angle   is defined as follow: following.

        . (15)
         . (22)

Taking the derivative time of Eq. (14) gives

Where,  and  are positive control

     coefficients. Then, the system stability is preserved,

(16)
         if the controller gains satisfy the following
conditions:

From Eq. (14) and Eq. (16), the following Eq.

(17) is obtained with a condition of sliding manifold     
        . (23)
defined as Eq. (18).    

                    . (17) The stability condition is automatically proved by
providing a Lyapunov candidate such that the
  ≅  ∈        . (18)
authors do not illustrate proving process.12-14)
In final, the gains of the winch controller shown
In Eq. (17),    denotes the uncertain
in Eq. (20) are chosen as follows:
perturbations. The derivative of uncertainty satisfies
  ≤  with the upper bound    of          . (24)
the derivative of the unknown perturbations. And,
the control law based on the Super-Twisting 3.3 Experiment results
Algorithm is calculated as following. The objectives of this study are keeping the
target tension of rope and moving the vessel to the

      . (19) desired position simultaneously. Especially, the

target rope tension should remain in the defined
Where value throughout entire berthing process.
The authors performed experiment by applying
            the designed controller. The experiment scenario is
(20)
        illustrated in Fig. 5 without any special constraint
     
   and with considering real application conditions. At

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 A Study on Vessel Motion Control with Towing Ropes and Dampers for Berthing

Start End

vessel

damper damper
winch winch

Fig. 5 Berthing experiment scenario

(a) vessel position

(a) vessel position

(b) winch rope tension

(b) winch rope tension

(c) damper pressure

Fig. 7 Dynamic responses of the stern side

side). In the figure, (a) : the vessel position, (b) :

rope tension and (c) : damper pressure, respectively.
By control the winch and damper system, excellent
vessel berthing control performance was achieved as
(c) damper pressure seen in the figures. On the contrary, another
Fig. 6 Dynamic responses of the bow side experiment was performed by considering some
uncertainties.
first, we tried a berthing experiment in the nominal During vessel moving to the target position, the
condition without disturbance. The results are rope tension should be kept in the defined value as
illustrated in Fig. 6 (bow side) and Fig. 7 (stern possible as it can in spite of existence of

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 Young-Bok Kim, Hwan-Cheol Park and Chang-Woo Kim

disturbance. several times. At 3 s, 7 s and 11 s , the vessel was

In this case, the target rope tension was set to attacked by pushing force toward harbor side.
120 N which is shown as the red dotted line in (b) Conversely, at 14 s and 18 s, pulling force attacked
of Fig. 8. In Fig. 8, (a) shows vessel position the vessel.
during moving to the final position. While the With the condition aforementioned, the vessel can
vessel is approaching the target position (0.57 m), approach the final position in 14[s] by controlling
the external disturbance is attacking the vessel in two actuators. The controlled vessel motion is
illustrated in (a) of Fig. 8. Also, the rope tension
and winch control signal are shown in (b) and (c),
respectively. (d) of Fig. 8 shows the pressure
change of damper cylinder during entire berthing
process.
As shown in the experiment results, we can find
out that the vessel is well controlled and robustly
moves to the final position as intended, regardless
(a) vessel position under disturbance attack
of attacking of disturbance.

4. Conclusions

In the conventional berthing technologies or

methods, there exist many limits to the safety of
berthing operation where rudders, main propellers,
(b) winch rope tension under disturbance attack
thrusters, tugboats and mooring lines are generally
provided. The high technologies have been
developed and applied to many industry fields.
However, the berthing work strongly still depends
on human power and stays on the pre-modern
technology level.
To overcome primitive berthing method, the
(c) tension control input to cope with disturbance authors proposed a new berthing technique/method
by combining dampers and winches. The proposed
idea was initialised by considering the real working
condition. As mentioned before, many working
apparatuses for berthing should be prepared in land
and sea side of harbour simultaneously. In this
study, the authors proposed a new berthing method
only using the apparatuses prepared on land side
(d) damper cylinder pressure variation without sea side apparatuses. It is the novelty of
Fig. 8 Experiment results when the disturbance this research such that we could obtain numerous
attacks the vessel advantages. The representative one is reduction of

동력시스템공학회지 제24권 제5호, 2020년 10월 99

 A Study on Vessel Motion Control with Towing Ropes and Dampers for Berthing

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