The Architecture of an Information System for the Power Management System on Ship

The object of this paper is to present the design of an information system for the management of power system on a ship using software agents. In shipboard power system a large number of electric components are tightly coupled in a small space and when a fault happens in one part of the system may affect other parts of the shipboard power system. The Power Management System is a critical part of the control equipment in the ship. It is usually distributed on various control stations that can operate together and share information between each other or independently in case of special emergency situations in which ship have to operate. The system becomes more complex by applying renewable energy system due to special rules implemented by International Maritime Organization (IMO). Safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean ocean, suggested by IMO, require the development of appropriate design, operational knowledge and assessment tools for energy efficient design and operation of ships. Based on an analysis of the information flow of the data processing for making appropriate decisions, a control architecture for power distribution, which has to be hierarchical, is proposed. This control architecture is implemented as multi-agent system. It is modelled by Colored Petri Net