Abstract: In order to suppress the chaos state in course keeping process, a method based on impulsive parametric perturbations is proposed to control chaos in ship nonlinear movement. This method utilizes Melnikov's method to obtain the relationship and the value range of pulse control parameters of controlled system, and then a suitable pulse controller is designed for chaos control. The simulation results show that the proposed control method can stabilize the system to different periodic orbits, and has good control effect.