Towards the development of an autonomous sailboat: Modelling and simulation of a small autonomous sailboat

Abstract

This paper presents the mathematical modelling and system identification of a Dragonflite 95 radio-controlled sailboat. The corresponding model will be used in a simulation of the control systems of the sailboat. The mathematical model is based on Fossen’s compact ocean vessel model and adds models for environmental disturbances and actuators. Numerical methods were used to estimate the parameters of the physical sailboat. The simulation model was developed and implemented in MATLAB Simulink. Experiments were performed to verify that the simulated behaviour of the Simulink model agrees with the practical behaviour of the physical sailboat.