Online Estimation of Ship’s Mass and Center of Mass Using Inertial Measurements

A ship’s roll dynamics is sensitive to the mass and mass distribution. Changes in these physical properties might introduce unpredictable behavior of the ship and a worst-case scenario is that the ship will capsize. In this paper, a recently proposed approach for online estimation of mass and center of mass is validated using experimental data. The experiments were performed using a scale model of a ship in a wave basin. The data was collected in free run experiments where the rudder angle was recorded and the ship’s motion was measured using an inertial measurement unit. The motion measurements are used in conjunction with a model of the roll dynamics to estimate the desired properties. The estimator uses the rudder angle measurements together with an instrumental variable method to mitigate the influence of disturbances. The experimental study shows that the properties can be estimated with quite good accuracy but that variance and robustness properties can be improved further.