Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ocean Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Simulation analysis of fin stabilizers on turning circle control during ship T

turns
Liang Lihua, Zhao Peng∗, Zhang Songtao, Yuan Jia
College of Automation, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The turning circle is one of the most basic and important parameters that represents the turning performance of a
Fin stabilizer ship. Steady turning diameter is an important indicator of maneuverability of ships and has received widespread
Turning circle attention. Fin stabilizers are currently added to ship designs for the primary purpose of producing roll-canceling
Ship turning moments during ordinary operation. The present work aims to investigate the effect of fin stabilizers on ship
PID
turning circle control during turning motion. The nonlinear 4-DOF mathematical model of a navy vessel is
Monte Carlo simulation
established. The forces and moments caused by propeller, rudder, fin stabilizers and wave disturbance are also
modeled. The simulations of ship turning motion with and without fin stabilizers are carried out to explore the
effect of fin stabilizers on ship turning performance. Based on the analysis of simulation results, an improved PID
controller based on Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) optimization is developed to realize the turning circle control.
The simulation results show that fin stabilizers are promising and effective for turning circle control during ship
turns with a properly designed PID controller, which provides a new idea for attitude control in ship turning.

1. Introduction
In order to reduce the time and fuel to reach the destination, ships
sailing on the sea always try to keep a straight line at a certain speed as
much as possible (Perez, 2005). However, the ship must change its
course when there are obstacles or other ships in its original course (Du
et al., 2018). In some situations, the ship has to conduct emergency turn
to avoid the incoming threat (Martin, 2003). Most ships rely on one or
more vertically oriented rudders to accomplish the maneuvers. To turn
the ship in time, the rudder is usually set to a certain amount of angle of
attack to produce moments large enough to generate rotation about the
ship's vertical axis in the intended direction (Carley and Duberley,
1972; Jin and Yao, 2013). The turning circle is one of the most basic
and important parameters that represent the turning performance of a
ship (Perez, 2005; Liu, 2013). The steady turning diameter is an im-
portant indicator of the maneuverability of the ship. The amplitude of
the steady turning diameter mainly depends on the rudder angle of
attack at a certain ship speed (Wang, 2013). The larger the rudder angle
of attack, the smaller the steady turning diameter. However, there are
emergency situations that the ship cannot avoid the threat even if the
rudder deflection reaches its maximum limitation, especially when the
ship sails in a confined waterway, which seriously affects the ship safety
(Du et al., 2017).
Fin stabilizers are another important ship control device. They are
mounted in pairs on both sides of the hull at fixed angles with respect to
the transverse plane of the ship and rotated through angles of equal
magnitude and opposite directions about their spanwise axis. As the
most effective and widely adopted active roll reduction device in the
world, fin stabilizers are designed and optimized for the primary goal of
obtaining the maximum anti-rolling moments during ordinary opera-
tion. There have been studies on the use of fin stabilizers to improve the
turning performance of ships. Martin (2003) explored the effect of fin
stabilizers on ship's turning characteristics in calm water considering
various combination of initial ship surge velocity and constant com-
manded deflections of rudders and fin stabilizers. Wang (2013) studied
the effect of fin stabilizers on ship's turning performance considering
environment disturbance. Liang et al. (2013) performed the research of
rudder parameters optimization based on ship optimal turning dia-
meter. Zhang (2016) used the method of sensitivity analysis to study
the effects of rudder and fin stabilizer parameters on ship turning mo-
tion characteristics, and obtained the optimal rudder and fin stabilizer
parameters based on multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) opti-
mization. Liang et al. (2018a) designed a linear quadratic regulator
(LQR) controller to investigate the effect of fin stabilizers on ship roll
control during turning motion, and proved that fin stabilizers can also
greatly reduce ship rolling and heeling caused by the turning and wave

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: heu_zyy@hrbeu.edu.cn (Z. Peng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2018.12.067
Received 13 June 2018; Received in revised form 11 December 2018; Accepted 29 December 2018
Available online 08 January 2019
0029-8018/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Lihua et al. Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182

disturbance. However, it is found that using fin stabilizers to reduce the

roll motion during ship turning can also cause an increase in the turning
diameter. Inspired by this phenomenon, the present work aims to in-
vestigate the effect of fin stabilizers on the turning circle control during
ship turns.
Generally, fin stabilizers need to incorporate the automatic con-
troller to achieve the optimal roll reduction for ship traveling in rough
sea (Fang et al., 2010). This also applies to the turning circle control,
that is, a suitable controller is important to achieve satisfactory control
effect. The controller of the turning circle control can be selected by
referring to the roll reduction controller. So far, PD control (Fang et al.,
2012), PID control (Crossland, 2003; Fang et al., 2010; Liang et al.,
2018c), LQR control (Lee et al., 2011; Yuan, 2014; Liang et al., 2018a),
adaptive control (Carletti et al., 2009; Li et al., 2016), fuzzy control
(Robert et al., 1999; Cao and Lee, 2003), sliding mode control
(Mcgookin et al., 2000; Fang and Luo, 2007) and robust model pre-
dictive control (Ghaemi et al., 2009) have been developed and applied
to control the fin stabilizers to reduce ship roll motion. The PID con-
troller may be the one which is the most extensively applied for its high
reliability and strong robustness. Therefore, the PID controller is also
considered here to realize the control of turning circle using fin stabi-
lizers. In order to inhibit the integral drift caused by integration and
avoid high-frequency noise induced by the differentiation, an improved
PID controller applied in the actual fin control is adopted here. How-
ever, the tuning of the control parameters are usually time-consuming
and depends on the operator's experience, trial and error or experi-
ments. Some theoretical or empirical formulas have been developed to
determine the related parameters (Ziegler and Nichols, 1943; Natarajan
and Gilbert, 2017). The optimization methods such as genetic algorithm
(Fang and Luo, 2006; Liu and Jin, 2013), neural network (Fang et al.,
2010), multi-objective optimization (Du et al., 2017), mono-objective
optimization (Khanh et al., 2013) or Monte Carlo simulation (Sheng,
2014) were also incorporated to improve its efficiency. Monte Carlo
simulation can realistically simulate actual physical processes which
makes it have large potential to solve the optimization problems. It can
achieve relatively optimal results through the combined effects of a
large number of random numbers. It is time-saving compared with the
common used genetic algorithm optimization. Therefore, the Monte
Carlo simulation is adopted in this paper to optimize the control
parameters of the improved PID controller.
The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 2 establishes the
mathematical models of ship motion, forces and moments caused by
propeller, rudder, fin stabilizers and wave disturbance in MATLAB.
Section 3 simulates and analyzes ship's turning motion without and
with fin stabilizers in calm water, and verifies the established mathe-
matical model. Based on the analysis results, the controller design is
given in Section 4. Section 5 represents the results and discussion. Fi-
nally, the conclusion is given.
2. Ship modeling
A ship in a seaway moves in six degrees of freedom. As show in
Fig. 1, two type of reference frames, the inertial frames and the body-
fixed frames, are used to describe its motion. In the modeling of ship
motion, the ship is usually considered as a rigid body and the 6-DOF
equations of motions can be obtained according to the Newton law
(Perez and Blanke, 2002; Perez, 2005). The six degrees of freedom
motions of the ship are coupled to each other with different coupling
strength, and can be divided into several groups according to the con-
tent and purpose of the study. For example, the main considerations in
the study of manoeuvrability are the surge, sway and yaw movements
in horizontal plane, while in the study of ship motion in vertical plane,
the pitch and heave attitudes are mainly considered (Jin and Yao,
2013). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of fin sta-
bilizers on ship turning circle control. Therefore, the turning motion of
the ship in horizontal plane is mainly considered. Take into account
Fig. 1. State definitions and coordinate systems for ship movement.
that ships experience a certain amount of rolling and heeling during
turning, the roll attitude is also included. Motions in pitch and heave
can often be neglected in comparison with the other four degrees of
freedom of motions (Holden et al., 2007). Therefore, the 4-DOF
mathematical model of ship motion in surge, sway, roll and yaw is
established as follow:
m (u˙ − vr − x G r 2 + z G pr ) = Xhyd + Xprop + Xfin + Xrud + Xenv
m (v˙ + ur + x G r˙ − z G p˙ ) = Yhyd + Yprop + Yfin + Yrud + Yenv
Ix p˙ − mz G (v˙ + ur ) = Khyd + Kprop + Kfin + Krud + K env
Iz r˙ + mx G (v˙ + ur ) = Nhyd + Nprop + Nfin + Nrud + Nenv (1)
where m is the ship mass. x G and z G are the coordinates of the centre of
gravity (CG) in x and z axes, respectively, Ix and Iz are the moment of
inertia about the x and z axes, respectively, u, v, p and r are the surge
velocity, sway velocity, roll angular velocity and yaw angular velocity,
respectively, X, Y, K, N are the longitudinal force, lateral force, roll
motion and yaw moment, respectively. Subscripts hyd , prop , fin , rud
and env represent forces and moments caused by hydrodynamic, pro-
peller, fin stabilizer, rudder and environment disturbance, respectively.
The hydrodynamic forces and moments are related to the movement
state of the ship and the characteristics of the fluid in the area of the
sailing, and can be expressed in the form of nonlinear functions of the
position, velocity and acceleration of the ship (Abkowitz, 1964). In this
paper, the nonlinear hydrodynamic model given by Perez and Blanke
(2002) is adopted:
Xhyd = Xu˙ u˙ + Xu | u| u|u| + Xvr vr
Yhyd = Yv˙ v˙ + Yp˙ p˙ + Yr˙ r˙ + Y|u | v |u|v + Yur ur +
Yv | v| v|v| + Yv | r| v|r| + Yr | v| r|v| + Yφ | uv| φ|uv|+
Yφ | ur| φ|ur| + Yφuu φuu
Khyd = K v˙ v˙ + K p˙ p˙ + K|u | v |u|v + Kur ur +
Kv | v| v|v| + Kv | r| v|r| + Kr | v| r|v|+
K φ | uv| φ|uv| + K φ | ur| φ|ur| + K φuu φuu+
K|u | p |u|p + K|p | p |p|p + Kp p+
K φφφ φφφ − ρg∇GZ (φ)
Nhyd = Nv˙ v˙ + Nr˙ r˙ + N|u | v |u|v + N|u | r |u|r +
Nr | r| r|r| + Nr | v| r|v| + Nφ | uv| φ|uv|+
Nφu | r| φu|r| + N|p | p |p|p + Np p+
N|u | p |u|p + Nφu | u| φu|u| (2)
where φ is the roll angle, ρ is the fluid density, g is the gravitational
constant, ∇ is the ship's volumetric displacement, GZ (φ) is an expres-
sion of the ship's resistance to capsizing as a function of roll angle. The

175
L. Lihua et al. Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182

CL (α ) and CD0 are the lift coefficient and minimum section drag coef-
ficient of the hydrofoil, respectively.
The rudder is installed below the stern line and mainly used to
control the course of the ship. The rudder forces and moments acting
the hull can be calculated as (Wang, 2013):
Xrud = −Dr ⋅δr
Fig. 2. Simplified block diagram of a hydraulic actuator model. Yrud = Lr ⋅δr
Krud = −rr⋅Lr ⋅δr
multipliers are the ship's hydrodynamic coefficients. Nrud = −LCG⋅Lr ⋅δr (6)
Propeller is the propulsion device of the ship. Its complex structure
and hydrodynamic characteristics make it difficult to model accurately. where Lr and Dr are the rudder-induced side force and drag force, re-
To simplify the research, the thrust force generated by the propeller is spectively, δr is the effective rudder angle of attack, rr and LCG are the
assumed to be equal to the ship resistance, which can be set equal to vertical and longitudinal distance between the centre of pressure of the
Xu | u| U02 as a first approximation (Perez, 2005). Ignore the effects of rudder and the centre of gravity of the ship, respectively.
propeller on other three degrees of freedom, the propeller forces and Fin stabilizers are mounted in pairs on both sides of the bilge of the
moments can be expressed as: hull and mainly used to reduce the roll motion of the ship. The forces
and moments generated on the fin stabilizers can be expressed as
Xprop = −Xu | u| U02 (Perez, 2005):
Yprop = 0 Xfin = −2Tf ⋅α e
Kprop = 0
Yfin = 2Nf ⋅sin(βfin )⋅α e
Nprop = 0 (3) Kfin = −2rf ⋅Nf ⋅α e
where Xu | u| is the hydrodynamic coefficient related to the surge velo- Nfin = −2FCG⋅Nf ⋅sin(βfin )⋅α e (7)
city, U0 is the initial sailing speed.
Fin stabilizers and rudders are the main ship control devices with where Tf and Nf are the fin-induced tangential force and normal force,
similar shapes but different locations. They are driven by hydraulic respectively, rf and FCG are the roll arm and yaw arm of the fin, re-
machinery according to the action command from the controller. The spectively, βfin is the fin tilt angle, α c is the effective fin angle of attack
simplified model presented by (van Amerongen et al., 1990), as shown considering the roll-induced vertical velocity and can be calculated as:
in Fig. 2, is adopted here to simulate the hydraulic machinery to impose rf p
α e = αf + arctan ⎛ ⎞
constraints on the control action. α c , αm , αmax and α̇max are the control ⎝U ⎠ (8)
command, mechanical angle, maximum angle and maximum turning
rate of the fin or rudder, respectively. where αf is the fin mechanical angle of attack.
The forces generated on a hydrofoil moving in uniform flow with a Ships sailing in a seaway often suffer from environment dis-
certain angle of attack are shown in Fig. 3. U is the relative inflow turbances, such as sea waves, winds and currents. Among them, sea
velocity, α is the angle of attack, b is the chord, a is the distance be- waves may have the largest effect on the normal navigation of the ship.
tween the shaft and the leading edge, Xc is the distance between the Therefore, the disturbance forces and moments caused by sea waves are
centre of pressure and the leading edge. F is the resultant hydrodynamic mainly considered in this paper. However, the motion of sea waves is a
force generated on the hydrofoil, and can be divided into the lift force L complicated stochastic process which is difficult to model accurately.
perpendicular to the incoming flow direction and the drag force D along The model including the first-order and the second-order wave dis-
the flow direction, or the tangential force T along to the chord direction turbance proposed by Daidola (1986) is adopted here to simulate the
and the normal force N perpendicular to the chord direction. The re- disturbance forces and moments caused by sea waves, and can be ex-
lationship between the hydrodynamic force and each component is as pressed as:
follows.
ωn2 ⎡
Xwave = −ρg cos χ ∑n = 1 NN En A
g ⎢ n
cos(ωe t + εn )
F= L2
+ = D2 + T2 N2 ⎣
N = D sin α + L cos α − Bn sin(ωe t + εn)] + 0.5ρLpp cos χ ∑n = 1 NN CXw (λn) an2
T = D cos α − L sin α (4)
ωn2 ⎡
The lift and drag generated on the hydrofoil can be calculated as Ywave = ρg sin χ ∑n = 1 NN En A
g ⎢ n
cos(ωe t + εn)
⎣
(Perez, 2005):
− Bn sin(ωe t + εn)] + 0.5ρLpp sin χ ∑n = 1 NN CYw (λn) an2
L = 0.5ρU 2ACL (α )
ωn2 ⎡
D = 0.5ρU 2A [CD0 + CL2 (α )/(0.9π Λ)] (5) Kwave = −ρg sin χ ∑n = 1 NN En C
g ⎢ n
cos(ωe t + εn )
⎣
where A is the hydrofoil area, Λ is the aspect ratio of the hydrofoil, − Dn sin(ωe t + εn)] + 0.5ρLpp d sin χ ∑n = 1 NN CYw (λn ) an2
ωn2 ⎡
Nwave = ρg sin χ ∑n = 1 NN En G
g ⎢ n
cos(ωe t + εn )
⎣
2
− Hn sin(ωe t + εn)] + 0.5ρLpp sin χ ∑n = 1 NN CNw (λn) an2 (9)

Fig. 3. Forces generated on the hydrofoil.
where En = 2Sς (ωn )Δω . The first item and second item in the right
side of the equal sign represent the first-order and the second-order
wave disturbance forces and moments, respectively. An , Bn , Cn , Dn , Gn
and Hn are the corresponding coefficients of the first-order wave dis-
turbance forces and moments. CXw , CYw and CNw are the corresponding
coefficients of the second-order wave disturbance forces and moments.
ωn and ωe are the wave frequency and encounter frequency,

176
L. Lihua et al. Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182

Table 1
Main parameters of the multipurpose naval vessel.
Description Value

Length between perpendicular (m) 51.5

Beam over all (m) 8.6
Displacement (m3) 357
Draft (m) 2.3
Transverse metacentric height (m) 1.1
Roll inertia (kg. m2) 2.38 × 106
Yaw inertia (kg. m2) 4.79 × 107
Vertical distance between CG and the baseline (m) 3.36

respectively. χ is the encounter angle. Lpp is the ship length and d is the
ship draft. εn , λn , an and Sς (ωn ) are the random phase, wave length,
wave height and wave-height spectrum of the nth regular wave, re- Fig. 4. Lift coefficient curves of the rudder and fin stabilizers versus angle of
spectively. NN is the number of regular waves. attack.

3. Simulation analysis
In order to investigate the effect of fin stabilizers on ship turning
performance, the simulations of ship turning without and with fin sta-
bilizers are conducted based on the mathematical model established in
Section 2. In this paper, a multipurpose naval vessel with a pair of fin
stabilizers and twin rudders is selected as the research object. The main
parameters of the full scale vessel are shown in Table 1. The hydro-
dynamic coefficients of the multipurpose naval vessel in surge, sway,
roll and yaw can be found in (Perez, 2005). The principle parameters of
the fin stabilizer and rudder are shown in Table 2. Although the si-
mulated stall angle of the fin is up to 35°, the maximum fin angle of
attack is limited to 25° considering the machinery constraints and load
torque in practical application. The rudder angle that turns the ship to
port is defined as the positive rudder angle. The fin angle that rolls the
ship to port is defined as the positive fin angle. The seawater density is
1025 kg/m3. The coordinate of CG in body-fixed coordinate system is
(−3.38, 0, −1.06).
The commercial CFD software Fluent was used to calculate the lift
coefficients of the fin and rudder. The three-dimensional numerical
simulation was adopted to get accurate results. The mesh models of the
fin and rudder as well as the corresponding computational domains
were built in the pre-process software Gambit, and imported to Fluent
for the calculation simulation. Denser meshes were used where it is
closer to the fin and rudder to improve the precision accuracy of the
computation. The computation domains of the fin and rudder are 10
times, 5 times and 5 times the chord of the fin and rudder, respectively.
The pressure based implicit solver, the SIMPEC algorithm and RNG k-ε
turbulence model were used to accomplish the numerical simulations.
The remeshing method was used to avoid generating negative cells. The
inlet and outlet of the computational domains were set as velocity inlet
space and pressure outlet space, respectively. The remaining other side
were set as symmetry boundary condition. The surfaces of the fin and
rudder were set as wall with no-slip condition. The lift coefficients of
the fin and rudder versus angle of attack obtained from CFD simulations
Table 2
Principle parameters of the fin stabilizer and rudder.
Description Fin stabilizer Rudder
Area (m2) 1.6 × 2 1.5 × 2
Aspect ratio 1 1.5
Max. angle of attack (°) 25 30
Max. turning rate (°/s) 15 10
Yaw arm (m) −2 20.4
Roll arm (m) 4.22 3.3
Minimum section drag coefficient 0.0065 0.0065
Lift coefficient 0.042 0.044
Tile angle (°) 34 90
are shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen from Fig. 4 that the maximum lift
coefficients of the fin and rudder obtained from are about 1.25 and
1.34, which are basically consistent with the values (1.26 and 1.33)
given in Martin (2003) and Perez (2005).
3.1. Model verification
In order to verify the established mathematical model of ship mo-
tion, the ship turning motion without the act of fin stabilizers are
conducted. The simulation results in Liang et al. (2018b) show that the
positive and negative rudder angles with the same magnitude have the
same effect on ship turning motion except for the direction. Therefore,
the turning motion under the action of the positive rudder angle is
analyzed and discussed in the following sections. Fig. 5 shows the si-
mulation results of ship turning in clam water with different initial
sailing speeds at rudder angle of +30° The corresponding numerical
results are shown in Table 3. It should be noted that the total simulation
time is 250 s. To have a clear representation of the transient process of
the turning motion, the roll rate curves of the first 100 s are given.
Due to the lack of data from model tests and full scale trials, the
accuracy of the established 4-DOF mathematical model of ship motion
is verified by comparing the simulation results with the calculation
results using empirical formulas obtained by summarizing a large
number of model tests and full scale trials. Davidson (1944) suggests
the following formula to describe the relationship between the speed
drop on turning and the relative steady turning radius:
3
⎛ U0 ⎞ ⋅sin ⎛ π ⋅ US ⎞ =
⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
5.9
+1
U 2 U (R 2
⎝ S⎠ ⎝ 0⎠ 0 / Lpp ) (10)
where US is the initial sailing speed and the steady turning speed, re-
spectively, R 0 is the steady turning radius.
The steady outward heel angle during ship turning in calm water
can be estimated by the following formula (Jia and Yang, 1999):
US2 (VCG − d/2)
φS =
ghR 0 (11)
where VCG is the vertical distance between the centre of gravity and the
baseline of the ship, h is the transverse metacentric height.
The theoretical steady turning diameter and outward heel angle are
calculated using Eqs. (11) and (12) according to the speed drop on
turning obtained from simulations. The comparison of simulation re-
sults and calculation results is shown in Table 4. It can be seen from
Table 4 that the simulation results of the steady turning diameter and
outward heel angle are slightly less than the theoretical calculations.
The error of the steady turning diameter between simulations and
calculations is small and less than 1.5%, whereas the error of the steady
outward heel angle between simulations and calculations is between
17.5% and 25%, which is relative large. However, the error of the

177
L. Lihua et al. Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182

Fig. 5. Ship turning motion with different initial sailing speeds at rudder angle of +30°

steady outward heel angle between simulations and calculations is still Table 4
in the reasonable range considering the small value base of the steady Comparison results between simulations and calculations.
outward heel angle. Take into account the simplification in the mod- Comparison item Initial Simulation Calculation Error (%)
eling process, the above errors are all within a reasonable range. speed (m/ results results
Therefore, the established 4-DOF mathematical model of ship motion s)
can be considered correct, and the obtained results obtained by simu-
Steady turning 5 299.10 303.62 1.49
lation have a certain reference value.
diameter (m) 10 293.54 297.74 1.41
15 283.83 286.61 0.97
Steady outward heel 5 1.01 1.34 24.63
3.2. Ship turning motion with fin stabilizers angle (°) 10 4.17 5.39 22.63
15 10.06 12.26 17.94
In order to investigate the effect of fin stabilizers on turning circle
control during ship turning, ship turning motion with fin stabilizers are
without the action of fin stabilizers, which means we can use the fin
simulated. Without loss of generality, the initial sailing speed is set at
stabilizers to realize the turning circle control in a certain range. It can
15 m/s and the rudder angle is set at 30°. The simulation results of ship
be noted that the effect of fin stabilizers on the steady outward heel and
turning in calm water under the action of fin stabilizers are shown in
the steady turning diameter is just the opposite, which means we can
Fig. 6. The total simulation time is 100 s, and the roll rate curves of the
use the fin stabilizers to control steady outward heel to indirectly
first 50 s are given to have a clear representation of the transient pro-
control the turning circle. Therefore, the control strategy using fin
cess.
stabilizers to control the turning circle is obtained.
It can be seen from Fig. 6 and Table 5 that the fin stabilizers can
greatly affect the ship turning performance. In the light of conducted
simulations, the positive and negative fin angles have the opposite ef- 4. Controller design and parameter optimization
fect on ship turning motion. The positive fin angle increases the inward
heel and the steady turning diameter, and decreases and even elim- It can be known from the simulation results that the effect of fin
inates the steady outward heel, whereas the negative fin angle increases stabilizers on the outward heel is opposite to that on the turning dia-
the steady outward heel, decreases the steady turning diameter and meter, and we can use this feature to control the turning circle. That is,
even eliminates the inward heel. The steady turning diameter with fin the fin stabilizers are operated in anti-rolling mode to increase the
angle of +20° increases by 14.64%, whereas the steady turning dia- turning circle, whereas in forced-rolling mode to decrease the turning
meter with fin angle of −20° decreases by 12.05% compared with that circle. In order to minimize the turning circle, the fin stabilizers should

Table 3
Results of ship turning with different initial sailing speed at rudder angle of +30°.
Initial speed (m/s) Max. inward/outward heel angle (°) Steady sailing speed (m/s) Steady turning diameter (m) Steady outward heel angle (°)

5 2.32/1.16 4.15 299.10 1.01

10 5.68/5.00 8.26 293.54 4.17
15 8.15/11.55 12.25 283.43 10.06

178
L. Lihua et al. Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182

Fig. 6. Ship turning motion under the action of fin stabilizers.

Table 5 to be stable and reliable for a long time. To improve the stability and
Results of ship turning with fin stabilizers. reliability of the PID controller, the integral is replaced by a first-order
Fin angle (°) Max. inward/ Steady Steady turning Steady
inertial element to avoid the integral drift caused by the integrator and
outward heel sailing diameter (m) outward heel the derivative is substituted by a second-order oscillating element to
angle (°) speed (m/s) angle (°) avoid high-frequency noise in the working frequency range of fin sta-
bilizers of 0.4 ∼ 1.6 rad/s. Therefore, the improved PID controller is
20 38.94/- 12.62 325.39 –
10 24.36/2.54 12.43 302.59 2.02
obtained as:
0 8.15/11.55 12.25 283.83 10.06 K1 K2 s
−10 -/20.80 12.04 266.35 17.27 GPID (s ) = KP + KI + KD
T1 s + 1 (T2 s + 1)(T3 s + 1) (13)
−20 -/29.79 11.84 249.63 24.07
where K1, K2 , T1, T2 and T3 are the gains and time constants of the first-
order inertial element and the second-order oscillation element, re-
spectively.

4.2. Monte Carlo simulation optimization

Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is a random simulation method and

Fig. 7. Diagram of turning circle control using fin stabilizer.
be used to increase the outward heel of the ship as much as possible
while ensuring the safety of the ship. The diagram of turning circle
control can be shown in Fig. 7.
4.1. Improved PID controller
PID controllers are the most used controllers in the world as they are
easy to maintain and tune and have higher reliability and strong ro-
bustness (Liu, 2013). They are extensively applied in ship industry such
as the control of fin stabilizers (Crossland, 2003; Fang et al., 2010),
anti-rolling tanks (Marzouk and Nayfeh, 2009), Magnus rotating roll
stabilizers (Liang et al., 2017), etc. The PID controller is usually ex-
pressed as:
1
GPID (s ) = KP + KI + KD s
s (12)
where KP , KI and KD are the gains of proportional, integral and deri-
vative, respectively. The control law for a control system in practice has
is very important numerical method guided by probability statistics
theory. It uses random numbers to solve complex computational pro-
blems and can guarantee the accuracy of the optimization process. It
has been widely used in financial engineering, macroeconomics and
computational physics. It is also extensively applied in optimization
problem in ocean engineering (Naess et al., 2017; Huseby et al., 2013;
Kim and Kim, 2017) and controller parameters (Sheng, 2014; Liang
et al., 2018b).
In this paper, the MCS is adopted to optimize the control gain
parameters of the improved PID controller to achieve good control ef-
fect on ship turning circle. To simplify the research, the multi-
disciplinary optimization software ISIGHT is adopted. ISIGHT is an
excellent software integration platform. It does not perform calcula-
tions by itself, however, it can quickly integrate and couple various
simulation softwares as needed in the form of building blocks, and
automatically run simulation program and restart the design process. In
this paper, ISIGHT is used to integrate the MCS optimization algorithm
and the ship motion program in MATLAB. The integration is shown in
Fig. 8, where the ship motion program simulates ship's turning motion
and the optimization program in ISIGHT selects appropriate control
parameters according to the cost function results and sends back to
MATLAB. The optimal control parameters can be obtained after the

179
L. Lihua et al.
Fig. 8. Integrated platform for MCS and MATLAB on ISIGHT.
optimization process is completed.
The MCS generates random combination of controller gain para-
meters within the preset parameter ranges according to the selected
random sampling technique. In this paper, the descriptive sampling
method is adopted. The preset parameter ranges are selected according
to the control parameters obtained through Ziegler-Nichols approach.
For comparison purpose, two evaluation indexes of the performance of
the turning circle control are adopted as:
Fig. 9. Simulation results of turning circle control.
180
Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182
J1 = var(φ − φset )
J2 = w1 var(φ − φset ) + w2 var(αf ) (14)
where var(φ-φset ) is the variance of the roll angle with respect to the
maximum expected heel angle φset , var(αf ) is the variance of the fin
angle, w1 and w2 are the weighting coefficients.
5. Results and discussion
Simulations are performed to demonstrate the effect of turning
circle control using fin stabilizers with the developed PID controller.
The simulation parameters are as follows: the rudder angle is 30°, the
initial ship speed is 15 m/s, the significant wave height is 1.5 m and the
initial encounter angle is 90°. For the target vessel in this paper, it is
assumed that its safety outward heel angle is 25°. Therefore, for safety
considerations, the maximum expected outward heel angle is set to 20°.
The controller parameters obtained from Ziegler-Nichols method are
KP = 1.062, KI = 0.5446 and KD = 0.497. The ranges of KP , KI and KD
for MCS are selected as [0, 5], [0, 3] and [0, 5] according to the control
gains obtained from Ziegler-Nichols approach. The optimized PID
parameters using J1 as the evaluation index are KP = 2.375, KI = 0.475
and KD = 1.175. The optimized PID parameters using J2 as the eva-
luation index are KP = 4.075, KI = 0.225 and KD = 4.275 with w1 = 5
L. Lihua et al.
Table 6
Performance of turning circle control.
Control method Steady turning Max. outward heel Fin angle
diameter (m) angle (°) (°)
No Control 284.96 11.55 0
ZN-PID 258.17 23.02 4.03
MCS-PID-J1 259.11 20.18 4.77
MCS-PID-J2 258.99 20.34 4.34
and w2 = 1. The simulation results are shown in Fig. 9. The perfor-
mance of turning circle control is given in Table 6. The roll angle in
Table 6 represents the single significant amplitude of the roll angle.
It can be seen from Fig. 9 and Table 6 that the turning circle has
been reduced to a certain degree and the ship turns faster with turning
circle control (TCC). The turning diameter with control is reduced by
9.1% compared to the diameter without control. The turning period is
reduced from 74.9s to 72.8s. The total turning path is reduced from
895 m to about 812 m. The cost to reduce the turning circle is to in-
crease the outward heel. The control effect of Monte Carlo simulation
based PID (MCS-PID) is better than the Ziegler-Nichols based PID (ZN-
PID). The outward heel angle under MSC-PID control is smoother and
close to the maximum expected outward heel angle. The turning dia-
meter and fin angle under MCS-PID control with the evaluation index
considering ship's roll and fin's movement have a certain degree of re-
duction compared with that only considering ship's roll, which saves
energy to a certain degree. Simulation results show fin stabilizers is
promising and effective in ship turning circle control with a properly
designed PID controller.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, the effect of fin stabilizers on turning circle control
during ship turns is investigated. The models of ship motion, and forces
and moments caused by propeller, rudder, fin stabilizer and wave dis-
turbance are established. Based on the established models in MATLAB,
the simulations of ship turning motion with and without the action of
fin stabilizers are carried out. Simulation results show that fin stabi-
lizers can obviously affect ship turning performance. Based on the
characteristics that the effect of fin stabilizers on turning circle and
outward heel is opposite, the turning circle can be indirectly controlled
by control the outward heel using fin stabilizers. For engineering ap-
plication, an improved PID controller is developed to realize the turning
circle control. Monte Carlo simulation is adopted to optimize the de-
veloped PID control parameters. For comparison purpose, two evalua-
tion indexes are used in Monte Carlo simulation optimization.
Simulation results show that the MCS-based PID control with perfor-
mance index considering ship's roll and fin's movement has a better
control effect. The turning circle diameter reduces obviously, and the
outward heel is smoother and more close to the expected maximum
outward heel with less fin action. It can be concluded that fin stabilizers
are promising for turning circle control during ship turning with a
properly designed PID controller. It also provides a new idea to the
attitude control in ship turning.
Acknowledgment
This work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities under Grant HEUCFM170404, Harbin Science and
Technology Innovation Talent Research Special Fund Project under
Grant 2017RC2017XK009006.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2018.12.067.
181
Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182
References
Abkowitz, M., 1964. Lectures on Ship Hydrodynamics-Steering and Manoeuvrability.
Technical Report. Hydro- and Aerodynamics laboratory, Denmark.
van Amerongen, J., van der Klugt, P., van Nauta Lemke, H., 1990. Rudder roll stabili-
zation for ships. Automatica 26, 679–690.
Cao, Y., Lee, T., 2003. Maneuvering of surface vessels using a fuzzy logic controller. J.
Ship Res. 47, 101–130.
Carletti, C., Ippoliti, G., Longhi, S., Orlando, G., 2009. Adaptive neural network based
sliding mode control for fin roll stabilization of vessels. In: IFAC Proceedings, vol. 42.
pp. 322–327.
Carley, J., Duberley, A., 1972. Design considerations for optimum ship motion. In:
Technical Report. 3rd Ship Control System Symposium. Bath, UK.
Crossland, J., 2003. The effect of roll stabilisation controllers on warship operational
performance. Contr. Eng. Pract. 11, 423–431.
Daidola, J., 1986. A simulation program for vessels manoeuvring at slow speeds. In:
Proceedings of Eleventh Ship Technology and Research (STAR) Symposium.
Davidson, K., 1944. On the turning and steering of ship. In: Trans. os SNAME.
Du, P., Ouahsine, A., Toan, K., Sergent, P., 2017. Simulation of ship maneuvering in a
confined waterway using a nonlinear model based on optimization techniques. Ocean
Eng. 142, 194–203.
Du, P., Ouahsine, A., Toan, K., Sergent, P., 2018. Simulation of the overtaking maneuver
between two ships using the non-linear maneuvering model. J. Hydrodyn. 30,
791–802.
Fang, M., Lin, Y., Wang, B., 2012. Applying the pd controller on the roll reduction and
track keeping for the ship advancing in waves. Ocean Eng. 54, 13–25.
Fang, M., Luo, J., 2006. The application of the sliding mode controller on the ship roll
reduction in random waves using genetic algorithm. Naval Eng. J. USA 118, 37–47.
Fang, M., Luo, J., 2007. On the track keeping and roll reduction of the ship in random
waves using different sliding mode controllers. Ocean Eng. 34, 479–488.
Fang, M., Zhuo, Y., Lee, Z., 2010. The application of the self-tuning neural network pid
controller on the ship roll reduction in random waves. Ocean Eng. 37, 529–538.
Ghaemi, R., Sun, J., Kolmanovsky, I., 2009. Robust control of ship fin stabilizers subject to
disturbances and constraints. In: 2009 American Control Conference, pp. 537–542.
Holden, C., Galeazz, R., Rodriguez, C., Perez, T., Fossen, T., Blanke, M., Neves, M., 2007.
Nonlinear container ship model for the study of parametric roll response. Model.
Ident. Contr. 28, 87–103.
Huseby, A., Vanem, E., Natvig, B., 2013. A new approach to environmental contours for
ocean engineering applications based on direct Monte Carlo simulations. Ocean Eng.
60, 124–135.
Jia, X., Yang, Y., 1999. Ship Motion Mathematical Model. Dalian Maritime University
Press, Dalian.
Jin, H., Yao, X., 2013. Ship Control Principle, 2 ed. Harbin Engineering University,
Harbin.
Khanh, T., Ouahsine, A., Naceur, H., EI Wassifi, K., 2013. Assessment of ship man-
oeuvrability by using a coupling between a nonlinear transient manoeuvring model
and mathematical programming techniques. J. Hydrodyn. 25 788–7804.
Kim, B., Kim, T., 2017. Monte Carlo simulation for offshore transportation. Ocean Eng.
129, 177–190.
Lee, S., Rhee, K., Choi, J., 2011. Design of the roll stabilization controller, using fin
stabilizers and pod propellers. Appl. Ocean Res. 33, 229–239.
Li, R., Li, T., Bai, W., Du, X., 2016. An adaptive neural network approach for ship roll
stabilization via fin control. Neurocomputing 173, 953–957.
Liang, L., Liu, H., Zhang, S., 2013. Research of rudder parameters optimization based on
ship optimal turning diameter. Ship Eng. 35, 61–64.
Liang, L., Zhao, P., Zhang, S., 2018a. Research and simulation of ship roll control in
turning motion. In: Proceedings of the 37th Chinese Control Conference, CCC 2018,
pp. 3841–3846.
Liang, L., Zhao, P., Zhang, S., 2018b. Roll reduction control during ship turns using fin
stabilizers with pid controller based on Monte Carlo optimization. In: Proceedings of
IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, ICMA 2018, pp.
749–754.
Liang, L., Zhao, P., Zhang, S., Yuan, J., 2018c. Phase matching based control strategy
research for zero-speed fin stabilizer. J. Harbin Eng. Univ. 39, 1539–1545.
Liang, L., Zhao, P., Zhang, S., Yuan, J., Wen, Y., 2017. Simulation and analysis of magnus
rotating roll stabilizer at low speed. Ocean Eng. 142, 491–500.
Liu, H., 2013. Simulation of Ship Maneuvering and Study of Rudder/fin Roll Stabilization
Control. Master’s thesis. Harbin Engineering University, Harbin.
Liu, Z., Jin, H., 2013. Extended radiated energy method and its application to a ship roll
stabilisation control system. Ocean Eng. 72, 25–30.
Martin, G., 2003. Fin Stabilizers as Maneuver Control Surfaces. Master’s thesis. Naval
Postgratude School.
Marzouk, O., Nayfeh, A., 2009. Control of ship roll using passive and active anti-rolling
tanks. Ocean Eng. 36, 661–671.
Mcgookin, E., Murray-Smith, D., Li, Y., Fossen, T., 2000. Ship steering control system
optimisation using genetic algorithms. Contr. Eng. Pract. 8, 429–443.
Naess, A., Gaidai, O., Haver, S., 2017. Efficient estimation of extreme response of drag-
dominated offshore structures by Monte Carlo simulation. Ocean Eng. 34,
2188–2197.
Natarajan, K., Gilbert, A., 2017. On direct pid controller tuning based on finite number of
frequency response data. ISA (Instrum. Soc. Am.) Trans. 36, 139–149.
Perez, T., 2005. Ship Motion Control: Course Keeping and Roll Stabilisation Using Rudder
and Fins. Springer-Verlag, London.
Perez, T., Blanke, M., 2002. Mathematical Ship Modelling for Marine Applications.
Technical Report. Technical University of Denmark, Section of Automation.
L. Lihua et al.
Robert, G., Zirilli, A., Tiano, A., Sutton, R., 1999. A fuzzy controller for integrated ship
motion control. In: IFAC Proceedings, vol. 32. pp. 8279–8284.
Sheng, X., 2014. The Research of the Motion Attitude Control of Deep V Ship. Master’s
thesis. Harbin Engineering University.
Wang, D., 2013. Research on Effects of Ship Turning Performance under Rudder/fin
Control. Master’s thesis. Harbin Engineering University, Harbin.
182
Ocean Engineering 173 (2019) 174–182
Yuan, C., 2014. The Research on Roll Control Strategy with Dynamic Stall Constraint.
Master’s thesis. Harbin Engineering University, Harbin.
Zhang, Y., 2016. Parameter Sensitivity Analysis of Rudder/fins and Controller
Optimization. Master’s thesis. Harbin Engineering University, Harbin.
Ziegler, J., Nichols, N., 1943. Process lags in automatic control circuits. Trans. ASME 65,
433–444.