E-mail:fossen @ ieee.org
Address and telephone
Professor Thor I. Fossen
PhD Electical Engineering, MSc Naval Architecture, Fulbright Alumni

Founder/Scientific Advisor for Marine Cybernetics (I am working part time at NTNU in 2007/2008)

Head of Automatic Control at the Centre for Ships and Ocean Structures (CESOS)
Key Scientist SUP on Computational Methods in Nonlinear Motion Control

Department of Engineering Cybernetics
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway    

Publications:
Papers
Download page

Students:
PhD students
MSc student

Teaching
TTK4190 Guidance and Control

TK8104 Advance Guidance and Control (PhD course from 2009)

Software
MSS GNC Toolbox in Matlab/Simulink

Misc.
Awards and Appointments
Industrial Experience

Laboratories
MCLab

Old Laboratories
HydroLaunch
GNC Lab.
GPS/INS Lab.

Phone Directories
NTNU Phone
Norway yellow pages

BioSketch [Curriculum Vitae]: I was born in 1963 in Bodø, Norway. I received my MSc Degree in Naval Architecture in 1987 from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim and the PhD degree in Control Systems from NTNU in 1991. In the period 1989-1990 I pursued postgraduate studies as a Fulbright scholar in flight control at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, Seattle. In 1993 I was appointed as a Professor in Guidance, Navigation and Control at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics where I am teaching guidance and control. I have authored 200 scientific papers and 3 international textbooks.

I am one of the founders of Marine Cybernetics (MC) where I have been Vice President R&D in the period 2002 to 2007. I am currently a senior scientific advisor for MC where I work with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing of marine control systems and development of real-time vessel simulators. Before 2002 I was senior scientific advisors for ABB, Kongsberg and MARINTEK. I have also been involved in the design of nonlinear dynamic positioning (DP) system for free-floating and moored ships, nonlinear and passive state estimators for marine vessels, autopilots, trajectory tracking and maneuvering control, identification of ship dynamics from sea-trials and strapdown DGPS/INS navigation systems. A patent for weather optimal positioning control of marine vessels was granted in 1998. This work received the Automatica Prize Paper Award in 2002. I have also been involved in the design of the SeaLaunch trim and heel correction systems.

Fields of Research [Publications]

  • Nonlinear Stability and Control of Marine Vessels
  • Nonlinear Observer Design
  • Autopilots, Dynamic Positioning and Thruster Assisted Mooring
  • Control of Underwater Vehicles
  • Control of Spacecraft and Flight Vehicles
  • Hydrodynamics and Mathematical Modelling of Marine Vehicles
  • Nonlinear and Constrained Control Allocation
  • Weather Optimal Control Systems for Ships and Rigs
  • GPS and Inertial Navigation Systems (INS)
  • Propulsion Control
  • Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing

[Search]

International Books

Fossen, T. I. (2002). Marine Control Systems: Guidance, Navigation and Control of Ships, Rigs and Underwater Vehicles,
   Marine Cybernetics AS, ISBN 82-92356-00-2.
   Free Software: MSS GNC Toolbox. [Lecture Notes]
Fossen, T. I. (1994). Guidance and Control of Ocean Vehicles, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. ISBN 0-471-94113-1
Nijmeijer, H. and T. I. Fossen (1999) (eds.). New Directions in Nonlinear Observer Design, Springer-Verlag. ISBN 1-852-33134-8.


Editor: Professor Thor. I. Fossen, Contact Address: fossen[@]ieee.org   Last updated: 2007-09-28