A Functional Architecture for Autonomous Hopper Dredgers
Type:
Presented during:
CEDA Dredging Days 2021
Authors:
J. van Stappen and J. Osnabrugge
Abstract
In the maritime industry a trend is emerging where the control of vessels is becoming increasingly autonomous. There are multiple levels of autonomy ranging from automation, to partly unsupervised operation.
It is expected that the application of autonomous control systems on vessels will increase the safety, uptime, and efficiency of the operation. Furthermore it allows for certain tasks to be performed remotely from the shore, when this is done a decrease in accommodation size can lead to a redesign of the ship lowering the production costs of vessels. Dredging automation has been developed for decades, and the development of autonomy is already happening for a wide range of ship types. It is expected that autonomous dredging will follow which is the reason Royal IHC started looking into the possibility of an autonomous Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger (TSHD). Royal IHC is developing an autonomous TSHD concept where a high level control system, called ‘Mission Master’, is created that connects the different automation systems for both the navigation and the dredging process. With the Mission Master the vessel propulsion and the dredge equipment are controlled providing the capability to perform the dredge operation autonomously. In this paper the functional architecture and the implementation of the control system are discussed. Tests with our TSHD simulator have shown that under the selected conditions the dredging operation can be executed fully autonomous. The operational performance of the system is evaluated in this paper providing a view on the metrics of the simulated operation, this has led to the conclusion that the functional architecture can form the basis for further developments. Future challenges are discussed at the end of this paper, due to the complexity of the dredging operation the authors propose a concept with human-in-the loop autonomy.
Keywords: Autonomous Operation, Automation,Trailing Suction Hopper Dredgers, Simulation.