Implementation of an Auto-Steering System for Recreational Marine Crafts Using Android Platform and NMEA Network

This paper deals with development of an autopilot system for leisure yacht based on NMEA 2000 network and android platform. The developed system can operate both for manual steering and automatic navigation mode. In automatic steering mode, after manipulation of commands which are NMEA 0183 sentences by android platform, the developed system translates and sends the packets through NMEA 2000 network. Then the controller which is connected to NMEA 2000 network receives the commands and controls the boat's rudder system automatically. The automatic steering mode is achieved by cooperation of two controllers; one for controlling the rudder system, and the other for controlling the vessel's heading. To control the vessel's rudder and heading angle two PID controllers are developed with an adjustable dead-band gain. Also, in order to eliminate the steady-state error occurred by applying dead-band, an integral controller which specifically supervises the system's behavior inside the dead-band area is developed. In this paper, at the first stage, simulations are accomplished using computer in order to examine the feasibility of the proposed based on simulation results. In the next step, the system on a real hydraulic steering model is implemented and at the end the performance examination by implementing it on a real boat and doing test navigation is executed.