Ship As a Buoy: RAO-Driven Heading Adjustment Strategy Based on Restricted Isometry Property

The safety and efficiency of marine operations heavily rely on external environmental conditions. Waves emerge as the most crucial factor influencing floating structures, which can be described by the directional wave spectrum. However, real-time in situ wave spectrum measurement are often lacking due to limitations involve in traditional approaches. To address this, estimating the sea state using ship motion responses has emerged as a cost-effective and viable method, known as the wave buoy analogy (WBA). Nevertheless, the performance of WBA varies due to ship’s inherent hydrodynamic properties, i.e., response amplitude operators (RAOs). The performance deterioration can lead to inaccurate estimations of the current sea state, potentially resulting in severe consequences. In this study, an adaptive ship heading adjustment strategy was proposed to circumvent inaccurate ship estimates in certain sea states and ascertain the optimal heading angle. The restricted isometry property was employed to determine the direction where ship can offer a better estimate. The involvement of heading adjustment strategy improved the accuracy and robustness of sea state estimation. Numerical simulations were conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.