Simulation of Ship Maneuvering Motions

Model Based Development (MBD) is increasingly being applied in the development of complex systems such as automated driving. Simulation technology is used in the verification and validation phase of MBD. Simulation has the great advantage of minimizing rework and reducing prototyping man-hours and costs when some anomaly or problem is found in the system under development.

Simulation is also effective in the development of autonomous ships. We are developing simulation technology for maneuvering motions in order to virtually verify the control system to realize the main functions of autonomous ships, such as maneuvering to avoid ships and automatic berthing/unberthing. If we can accurately simulate the effects of wind and wave disturbances on ship motions in actual sea and the effects of water depth, we can identify problems in the control system prior to installation on ships, which will lead to improvements of ship designs. In the DFFAS project, a ship motion model was developed on the simulation platform CyberSea*, and preliminary verification was conducted by connecting it to the control system to confirm the effectiveness of this method.

Tank testing and CFD are commonly used to develop ship motion models, but we are also researching methods to efficiently develop models from actual ship operation data and methods to modify the parameters of ship motion models.