Modeling and control of ballast system to improve stability of catamaran boat

Abstract

Ballast system is a system which works to keep the ship to be stable. The conventional ballast system is operated manually by human operator. In this paper, an automatic control for ballast system for catamaran boat is proposed. The scheme of the ballast system is designed and modeled mathematically. The controller used in this paper is PID controller which the parameters are determined based on the mathematical model of the ballast system and using Ziegler-Nichols method. The simulation results shows that the proposed system have a good results in the accuracy and speed response of the ballast system to stabilize the ship.