• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 2009

A waypoint tracking algorithm(WTA) is designed for Unmanned Surface Vehicle(USV) in which water-jet system is installed for propulsion To control the heading of USV for waypoint tracking, the steering nozzle of water-jet need, to be controlled. Firstly, target heading is calculated by using the position information of waypoints input from the land control center. Secondly, the command for the steering nozzle of water-jet is calculated in real time by using the heading and the rate-of-turn( ROT) from magnetic compass, In this study, in order to consider the drift angle due to external disturbance such as wind and wave, the course of ground( COG) can be used instead of heading at higher speed than a certain value, To test the performance of newly-designed WTA, the tests were carried out in actual sea area near Gwang-an bridge of Busan. In this paper, the sea trial test results from WTA are analyzed and compared with those from manual control and those from commercial controller.