Abstract
Accurate and stable ship heading control is crucial for ensuring maritime safety and operational efficiency. PID controllers have been widely used in ship autopilot systems, however, fine-tuning the PID controller parameters to achieve optimal performance in complex and constantly changing operating conditions is a major challenge. To overcome the above limitations, this paper proposes the use of a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimize the parameters of the PID controller, forming a GA-PID controller to improve the quality of the controller. Thereby, this study contributes to improving the performance and reliability of the ship's autopilot system.