A Study on Heuristic Berthing System Design with Winch and Damper Assistance

Vessel maneuvering problem in the harbor area is generating considerable interests in terms of marine cybernetics. In this sense, the vessel is operated and moves at ultimately low or zero speed in shallow water area. So the vessel is usually aided by the cooperation with 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 excessively complicate and dangerous berthing work. In the proposed berthing method, in order to manipulate the actuators (winches and dampers), a simple and heuristic control strategy is applied for a basic experiment. Finally, experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed automatic vessel berthing strategy based on the heuristic control method.