In order to deal with the dynamic positioning system control problems of dredgers working under strong dredging reaction or harsh environments,an adaptive backstepping method is proposed.Disturbances are estimated and compensated for by the adaptive method without extra sensors on dredging equipment,and the control mechanism is simplified.Adaptive control is used to compensate for the reaction and environmental disturbances on the dredger,so the dredger can maintain the desired position with a minimum error and shock.The proposed adaptive robust controller guarantees the global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system and rapid position tracking of the dredger.The simulation results show that the proposed controller has superior performance in position tracking and robustness to large disturbances.