Renato is presenting at the European Control Conference (ECC) 2022.

Rodriguez, R., Wang, Y., Ozanne, J., Sumer, D., Filev, D., Soudbakhsh, D., “Adaptive Takeoff Maneuver Optimization of a Sailing Boat for America’s Cup”, European Control Conference, (ECC) 2022.

Abstract: This paper presents optimal sailing maneuvers for an AC75 foiling sailboat competing in America’s Cup. The innovative sailboat design introduces extra degrees of freedom and articulations in the boat that result in nonlinear, high-dimensional, and unstable dynamics. The optimal maneuvers were achieved via the exploration of out-of-the-box solutions through adaptive control and optimization. We used a high-fidelity sailboat simulator for the data generation process, and an adaptive control approach (Jacobian Learning (JL))to optimize the sailing maneuvers. These maneuvers serve as benchmarks and provide insightful information about the underlying dynamics of the boat. The close-hauled and tacking maneuvers were optimized to achieve maximum Velocity MadeGood (VMG) and minimum loss of VMG, respectively. The optimal solutions are subject to physical/actuator constraints as well as the ones enforced to ensure the feasibility of the maneuvers by humans (sailors). The optimal maneuvers boast a marginal loss in sailing performance (VMG) of less than1.5%, which enables exploiting areas of good wind conditions in the racing environment by maneuvering towards these areas without accruing the significant losses traditionally associated with performing multiple maneuvers.