Abstract: The ship-based helicopters are in complicated circumstances because of winds and waves. In this paper, the movements of the ship on the sea and the external loads on the helicopter on a ship are analyzed. The helicopter and the deck of the ship are treated as rigid bodies. Mooring the helicopter is realized usually by using cables. The cable is considered as a flexible element, and can be only subjected to tension. The forces of the cables are calculated by using two different methods. The expressions of the mooring cable tension calculation are derived. The locations of the mooring points are optimized by the genetic algorithm. Based upon the mathmatic model and the genetic algorithm feature, the operator routine is designed. The programming language of MATLAB is applied the program design. According to the characteristics of the mooring cable, some added constraint conditions are taken into account for optimization. The optimum layout and the tension forces in the mooring cables are obtained for different sea conditions. Finally, the optimization results are found after making general comparison and analysis.

Key words: carrier-based helicopter, mooring, genetic algorithm, optimization, tension