Designing a PID Controller for Ship Autopilot System

Many means of transportation in these days have autopilot system – a modern system made from the ultimate growth of technology that can handle a partial or a complete control and help the drivers get relaxed and restored for a long drive, especially in aeronautics and maritime in which a trip usually lasts for plenty of hours and a normal man cannot control the whole system for such long duration, due to mental and physical fitness issues. Thus, in this paper, we are going to present a popular controller in autopilot system – named “PID controller” – including its fundamentals, its mathematical models and its performance for both theoretical and practical result. In experimentation, we used the controller to navigate a ship model along a predefined tour and tested at a pool in order to compare and evaluate, as well as promote solutions to deal with the drawbacks.