Autopilot Test and Accreditation

Last Updated on Thursday, 25 August 2011 09:01 Written by Wayne Thursday, 11 March 2010 12:18

H Scientific's ship simulators are among the few to support the ISO16329, 11674 and IEC 62065 models which define rudder and motion responses for the purposes of compliance testing and accreditation to IMO requirements, for normal and high speed craft. H Scientific authored the mathematical models used by the IEC in the IEC62065 international standard for compliance testing and accreditation of track control systems.

Sea trials are costly, in terms of personnel, trials vessel and equipment. Delays in waiting for the right weather can be extremely expensive and the trials conditions cannot be controlled. Using simulated sea trials, 100% of the trial time can be spent on obtaining the data required - under the required conditions. The simulator calculates the response of the vehicle to the autopilot so that the operation and performance can be tested without leaving the laboratory. The simulator software is highly modular and may be configured by the user to simulate a large range of vessels. A set of predefined standard vessels or vehicles may be created and saved for reference. A 3D external view from the vehicle or from a trailing camera is also available. The simulators can be used for autopilot development (see the Autopilot Development section).

Description

The basic stages in setting up the simulator to test an external autopilot are as follows:

Autopilot outputs: the autopilot outputs the machinery demands which are input to the simulator in one of two ways: either by taking the demand signal from the autopilot and simulating the actuator response, or by connecting the output to a real actuator and measuring the resulting position of the actuator. Analogue, digital ("follow-up") and PWM signals are supported.
The simulator predicts the movement of the vessel in response to the actuator settings and the selected environmental conditions.
The response of various navigation instruments are predicted within the simulator, including offset and random errors, and output data rates and latencies.
Instrument output formats include NMEA 0183 and many other industry standards, and analogue outputs where appropriate.
The powerful data-logging facility allows the user to view parameters, both during and after the trial. Data may be viewed in real time using the oscilloscope windows, or logged to Matlab's "MAT" file format for off-line analysis.

Hardware

The simulator software will run on any modern PC, either laptop or desktop, that runs under Windows XP / XP Pro. It is expected that Windows Vista will also support H Scientific's simulator products, although no guarantee is given at this stage; please enquire if this is your requirement.

H Scientific will be pleased to supply GENIE analogue I/O modules, and a range of suitable RS232, RS422 / 485 USB modules to support serial communications.