Electronic docking system

A system for deriving docking parameters during the operation of docking a ship to a jetty comprising:

• means for determining the angular position of a reference location in the coordinate frame of said jetty;
• means for determining the velocity of said reference location, means located at a multiplicity of predetermined locations along said jetty for measuring perpendicular range to a multiplicity of locations along the hull of said ship;
• means coupled to each of said range measurement means for providing a best estimate of range and range rate for each of said range measurements;
• means coupled to said best estimate means for determining a linear regression line for said hull of said ship in the coordinate frame of said jetty that provides a least squares fit for said best estimate for each of said perpendicular ranges;
• means coupled to said best estimate means for determining a linear function for said range rates in the coordinate frame of said jetty that provides a least squares fit for each best estimate of said range rate for each of said hull locations;
• means coupled to said linear regression determination means and said linear range rate determination means for determining the turning rate of said ship;
• means coupled to said linear regression determination means for determining the slope and intercept of said linear regression in said coordinates frame of said jetty;
• means coupled to said linear range rate function determination means for determining the slope and intercept of said linear function for said range rates in said coordinates frame of said jetty;
• means coupled to said linear regression line slope and intercept determination means and to said reference location angular position determination means for determining the coordinates of said reference source in said coordinate frame of said jetty;
• means coupled to said reference source coordinate determination means for determining the range between said reference source and said reference source range rate determination means;
• means coupled to said range rate slope and intercept determination means and to said reference source coordinate determination means for determining the velocity of said ship normal to said jetty;
• and
• means coupled to said reference location range rate determination means, to said normal range rate determination means, and to said means for determining the range between said reference source and said reference source range rate determination means for determining said ship's velocity parallel to said jetty.