Control system and method for controlling a moving body

• US 7,403,841 B2
• Filed: 03/26/2004
• Issued: 07/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Furuno Electric Co, Ltd
• Original Assignee: Furuno Electric Co, Ltd
• Inventors: Maeno, Hitoshi, Morita, Hirohiko, Uchino, Eiji, Yamakawa, Takesi
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran; Dalena
• Application Number:
  US10/809,399
• Publication Number:
  US 20040193332A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,579 Days
• Field of Search: 701/25, 701/37, 701/39, 701/45, 701/46, 701/1, 702182-185, 700/21, 700/79, 700/80, 714/25, 714/37, 714/39, 714/45, 714/46
• US Class Current: 701/1
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0206 specially adapted to water vehicles

Abstract

An automatic steering control system comprises a behavior detector, a pattern matching section and a control parameter setter. The behavior detector sequentially determines a time duration of each of specific kinds of behaviors of a ship based on heading data detected by a heading sensor. The pattern matching section sequentially determines a behavior pattern which each of the behaviors of the ship matches from among multiple behavior patterns based on the heading data detected by the heading sensor during the time duration of each of the behaviors sequentially determined by the behavior detector. The control parameter setter sequentially reads out control parameters stored in a memory in correlation with the behavior pattern which each of the behaviors of the ship matches as determined by the pattern matching section and controls the ship based on the control parameters read out of the memory.

Claims

1. A control system for controlling a heading of a ship to be controlled, said control system comprising:

a heading of the ship acquisition section for sequentially acquiring instantaneous values of the heading of the ship;

a timing judgment section for sequentially determining a time duration of each of specific kinds of behaviors of the ship based on the values of the heading of the ship acquired by the heading of the ship acquisition section;

a behavior pattern judgment section for sequentially determining a behavior pattern which each of the behaviors of the controlled ship matches from among multiple behavior patterns based on the values of the heading of the ship acquired by the heading of the ship acquisition section during the time duration of each of the behaviors sequentially determined by the timing judgment section;

a control parameter storage section for storing control parameters in correlation with each of the multiple behavior patterns;

a control parameter read-out section for sequentially reading out the control parameters stored in the control parameter storage section in correlation with the behavior pattern which each of the behaviors of the controlled ship matches as determined by the behavior pattern judgment section; and

a control section for controlling a steering device of the controlled ship based on the control parameters sequentially read out by the control parameter read-out section.

2. The control system according to the claim 1 further comprising:

a behavior evaluation value calculating section for sequentially calculating an evaluation value of the behavior performed by the controlled subject based on the values of the control quantity acquired by the control quantity acquisition section during the time duration of each of the behaviors sequentially determined by the timing judgment section; and

a control parameter update section for updating the control parameters stored in the control parameter storage section based on the evaluation value sequentially calculated by the behavior evaluation value calculating section.

3. The control system according to the claim 2, wherein the control parameter update section updates the control parameters used during the time duration of each behavior corresponding to the evaluation value sequentially calculated by the behavior evaluation value calculating section.

4. The control system according to one of the claims 1 through 3, wherein the timing judgment section determines timings at which the control quantity acquired by the control quantity acquisition section take extrema as being a start timing and an end timing of the time duration of each of the behaviors based on the values of the control quantity acquired by the control quantity acquisition section.