Autonomous navigation and control for a sustainable vessel: A wind-assisted strategy

The emission of carbon dioxide from the maritime transportation sector accounts for a significant proportion of the total emissions within the entire industry. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has carried out a world’s inaugural preliminary strategy on the reduction of greenhouse gases from shipping transportation, and the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee has pointed out that renewable energy (wind, solar, hydrogen) can provide a whole or assisted thrust for a marine surface vessel concerning the energy efficiency. One observes that the research of a sustainable vessel, which is powered by a wind-assisted thrust, is still in the early stage. This paper investigates an autonomous navigation and control strategy for a sustainable vessels for a reduction of consumption of fossil fuel, leading to a lower emission of carbon dioxide. For this purpose, two kinds of wind-assisted vessels, the wing sail-assisted vessel and rotor sail-assisted vessel are described from three aspects, the principles, installation and the mathematical model of the wind-assisted vessels. On the basis of the nonlinear mathematical model, an autonomous control scheme is proposed that uses a Backstepping technique. In addition, the adjustment strategies for the wing sail and rotor sail are discussed, which can achieve the objective of energy-saving by reducing the thrust from the propeller. From a numerical example by utilization of a rotor sail-assisted vessel, the explicitly result that a good energy-saving performance with 13% energy optimization ratio is achieved while a path following operation is carried out in the presence of the simulated wind environment. Furthermore, the feasibility of the application of wind-assisted vessel in practical engineering is discussed. Finally, the future applications and key techniques are examined to expedite the real implementation of theoretical advancements in the field of the wind-assisted vessel.