Korea Maritime & Ocean University researchers develop a new method for path-following performance of autonomous ships.
Traditional models for analysing the path-following performance of autonomous ships can lead to inaccurate predictions. CFD models can lead to more accurate assessment and, therefore, lead to safer autonomous navigation.
Automatically vehicles
The rising popularity of autonomous vehicles has spurred significant research interest in the maritime industry, particularly for developing maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS).
Any deviation from this path due to adverse weather conditions poses serious risks like collision, contact, or grounding incidents. It is thus desirable for autonomous ships to have a mechanism in place for effectively resisting deviations.
Mathematical ships
However, current methods for assessing the path-following performance of autonomous ships rely on simplified mathematical ship models. Unfortunately, these models cannot capture the complicated interactions between the hull, propeller, rudder, and external loads of ships, leading to inaccurate estimates of path-following performance.
In light of these guidelines and the need for assessing path-following performance, a multinational team of researchers, led by Assistant Professor Daejeong Kim from the Division of Navigation Convergence Studies at the National Korea Maritime & Ocean University, has recently studied the path-following performance of MASS using a free-running computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model combined with the line-of-sight (LOS) guidance system, at low speeds under adverse weather conditions.
“We employed a CFD model based on a fully nonlinear unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes solver that can incorporate viscous and turbulent effects and the free surface resolution critical to path-following problems, enabling a better prediction of path-following performance,” says Dr. Kim.
KRISO
The team employed the CFD-based analysis of the popular KRISO container ship model with the autonomous LOS guidance system. The adverse weather conditions were modeled as disturbances from the bow, beam, and quartering sea waves, and these three cases were studied at three different speeds to identify the effect of forward speeds on the path-following performance.
Additionally, the heave and pitch responses of the ship were heavily influenced by the direction of the incident waves. Furthermore, in all three cases, the roll amplitudes were consistently below 1.5 degrees. However, the team could not ascertain the effectiveness of increasing speed in improving path-following performance.
Elaborating on the implications of these findings, Dr. Kim says, “The proposed CFD-based model can provide a valuable contribution to enhancing the safety of autonomous marine navigation. Moreover, it can also offer low-cost alternatives to model-scale free-running experiments or full-scale sea trials.”
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Source : Techxplore
