Model Based Analysis of Seasickness Effects in a Fast Ferry

Abstract In a experimental research about increasing the comfort of a fast ferry, using moving flaps and a T-foil, mathematical models of heave and pitch motions of the ship have been determined. Besides this, knowledge about seasickness and waves has been gathered. This is important to determine good control of the actuators, to avoid or alleviate seasickness of passengers. However this is not all: it is also important to extract some criteria for the captain (manoeuvring), for ship designers and for actuators engineering. Taking advantage of the models obtained, a study of seasickness prediction has been done, and some interesting results have been obtained. Part of these results is also valuable as orientation for the control design. The general perspective of the paper, to tackle the evaluation problem, is an analogy with filters.