1. INTRODUCTION 1.

7 Organisation of the thesis

Chapters 3–4 present the infrastructure, which has been developed as a basis
for further research into robotic sailing techniques:

• Research design (Chapter 3): a detailed description of two robotic sailing

boats is provided. These prototypes have been developed for field experi-
ments in order to evaluate the novel algorithms which are presented later
in this thesis.

• System architecture (Chapter 4): a flexible and reliable control and com-
munication infrastructure for robotic sailing boats is presented. Together it
represents a framework for all areas of autonomous sailing boat navigation.

Chapters 5–7 present the novelties and contributions to knowledge to the field
of robotic sailing in detail. Each of these chapters includes a theoretical descrip-
tion of the proposed approach, an experimental validation, and is concluded by
a discussion of the results:

• Short-course routing (Chapter 5): a novel method for real-time route

optimisation is presented. It relies on locally measured weather data only
and reacts immediately on changing wind conditions.

• Obstacle avoidance (Chapter 6): a reactive approach is presented, which

is an extension to the short course routing method mentioned above. The
algorithm enables an autonomous sailing boat to circumnavigate differently
sized obstacles under various wind conditions successfully.

• Manoeuvre execution (Chapter 7): it is described how basic sailing skills

can be transformed into a Mamdani type fuzzy inference system (FIS). The
proposed system controls both rudder and sails not just on a straight course,
but also during tack and jibe.

Chapter 8 discusses the results and how they have met the original aims. Each
of the research questions is evaluated separately. Results are outlined as are their
limitations. Finally, this chapter gives an outlook to further research in the field
of autonomous sailing.

11